Sense and decide
Yes, but what's the scene?
A standing prompt that pulls a discussion out of comfortable abstraction and down to what happens.
Borrowed from television writers' rooms, where showrunners pull discussion back to what actually happens in a scene.
Ongoing habit · Minutes to start · Anyone on the team can start it
Try this first
When it gets abstract, ask what that looks like in practice.
Use it when
Discussion keeps drifting into abstract themes with no concrete output.
Skip it when
Early on some abstraction helps, so do not force concreteness onto an idea still forming. Use it when abstract agreement is hiding unresolved specifics.
How to introduce it
Keep one question ready for when a discussion floats up into themes and agreeable generalities. But what happens? Writers' rooms use it to pull a room from lofty themes back to the concrete scene. Groups agree easily on abstractions and only find the disagreement when they reach specifics.
How to show up
Notice the drift into abstraction and pull it back to specifics, as often as it takes. Keep asking what that looks like until the vague agreement becomes a tested one.
How long it takes
No setup. It's a prompt used in the moment.
What makes it hard
Abstract agreement feels like progress, so pulling people down can read as nitpicking. The disagreement that surfaces is the point, so welcome it instead of smoothing back to the comfortable version.
What it looks like when it's working
Vague agreement gets tested and disagreements surface before the team commits. Comfortable abstraction in the room and conflict during execution means nobody is asking.
How long until it sticks
Expect a few discussions before pulling-to-the-concrete becomes a shared reflex.
How you know it stuck
The team pulls its own discussions down to specifics.
The idea behind it
A group can agree on an abstraction and think it is aligned. Pull the discussion down to what happens and you find out whether it is.
Where it comes from
Television writers' rooms. A standing prompt that forces abstraction back to the concrete act. When the room drifts into abstract themes, a senior pulls it back to the concrete: what happens?
Evidence
No reference link has been found for this move yet.