The Best Piece of Advice

Choose this exercise

Purpose: Collect and display practical guidance gathered from participants' past experiences.

Use it when: Use during an opening session, a retrospective, or an orientation when participants need a low-pressure way to speak to a colleague and share practical perspective.

Skip it when: Skip when the session topic demands strict technical analysis, when personal reflection would distract from urgent decisions, or when team members do not yet have psychological comfort sharing past experiences.

Group arrangement: Pairs; whole group for wall display and brief sharing. If an odd number attends, form one triad.

Timing: Source indicates under 5 minutes for a quick variant. UWT schedules 15 minutes to allow paired interviews, legible writing, wall posting, and structured debriefing for up to 24 participants.

Materials and tools

• One sheet of blank paper (A4 or US Letter) per participant
• One dark broad-tipped marker (such as a Sharpie) per participant
• One roll of wall-safe masking or painter tape
• A countdown timer visible to the room

Before participants arrive

1. Place one sheet of paper and one marker at each participant's seat.
2. Clear wall or whiteboard space where up to 24 sheets can be taped up and easily read from standing distance.

Say this to open

Turn to your partner. You will each ask the other: 'What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?' Listen closely. You will write down your partner's answer on your paper using large, dark print. If you prefer not to share personal history, offer general professional guidance, a favorite proverb, or pass. If you pass, you can still scribe for your partner.

How to run it

1. Introduce prompt and form pairs 2 minutes

   Deliver the opening script. Form pairs with neighbors. If there is an odd number of participants, form one triad. In the triad, each person interviews the person to their left and writes their response.

2. Interview and record advice 5 minutes

   Start the timer. Each partner has two and a half minutes to share advice and have their partner record it. The listening partner prints the advice in large block letters fitting on one sheet. Announce the switch at two and a half minutes so partners swap roles. In a triad, call 90-second rotation cues.

3. Post sheets and browse 4 minutes

   Direct everyone to post their sheet on the designated wall using painter tape. If someone passed, they may post a blank sheet or leave it down. Give participants three minutes to walk along the wall, reading the collected advice silently.

4. Whole-room sharing and debrief 4 minutes

   Call the room together. Invite three or four volunteers to read aloud one piece of advice written by someone else that stood out to them. Facilitate the debrief questions within the remaining time.

Debrief questions

• Which piece of advice on the wall would be most helpful for our current work together?
• What common themes or principles appear across these different pieces of advice?
• When might following one of these pieces of advice actually lead someone astray?

Finished output: A gallery wall of participant-submitted advice sheets displayed for the duration of the gathering.

Remote

Form breakout rooms of two people for five minutes. Each participant posts their partner's advice onto a shared virtual whiteboard (such as Miro or Mural) or shared slide deck using a large digital sticky note. Bring everyone back to the main room to spend three minutes reading the board before calling on three volunteers to highlight an item.

Hybrid

In-person participants post physical sheets on a wall that is photographed or captured by a room camera. Remote pairs enter their advice directly into a shared digital whiteboard. A designated in-person volunteer reads selected digital notes aloud or prints them for the physical wall so both groups see all contributions.

Access and participation choices

• Participants may dictate their partner's advice to a scribe or use typing if handwriting is difficult.
• Anyone may share general workplace advice, a famous quotation, or choose to pass on speaking and instead act as scribe.

If the session gets stuck

Participants write full paragraphs in small, unreadable print.

Remind people before they start writing: 'Keep it to ten words or fewer so someone can read it from five feet away.'

One partner dominates the interview time.

Call out the halfway mark clearly at two and a half minutes and ask everyone to swap who is speaking.

A participant chooses to pass entirely on sharing an insight.

Acknowledge the pass neutrally. That participant acts as the recorder for their partner's advice, leaving their own sheet unwritten or posting an empty sheet.

Terms used here

• Triad: A three-person subgroup used when an odd number of people prevents an even split into pairs.