Sense and decide
The journal club / red team
Assign people to attack the plan
A recurring session gives people an explicit job: find the weaknesses in the team's evidence, plans, and AI output before the team commits.
Borrowed from journal clubs in medicine and science, and red teams in military and intelligence analysis, as described in the CIA's Tradecraft Primer. Read the original source.
One session · An hour or more to set up · Anyone on the team can start it
Try this first
Before you commit to a plan, assign two people to argue why it will fail, and take the case seriously.
Use it when
Plans go unchallenged and enthusiasm is unanimous.
Skip it when
It suits consequential plans worth stress-testing. On small decisions it is overkill, and it needs enough trust that the attack reads as a role rather than hostility.
How to introduce it
Run a recurring session built to attack your own thinking. Pull apart the evidence behind a plan. Try to break a proposal, including one a model wrote. Assign a group the job of finding the flaws. Journal clubs tear apart a paper's methods, red teams attack a plan, and both work for the same reason.
How to show up
Frame the attacking role as service and protect it from being taken personally. Then make sure the flaws get fixed rather than aired and forgotten.
How long it takes
A recurring session of thirty to sixty minutes, or a focused attack before a big commitment.
What makes it hard
People take it personally, or the red team softens to stay pleasant. Naming the role as a job helps both sides. Fluent AI plans invite a nod, so push the group to break them, since polish is where the weak spots hide.
What it looks like when it's working
Real weaknesses surface before commitment and get fixed, and people treat the attack as useful. Gentle sessions that change nothing are theater.
How long until it sticks
Expect a few sessions before attacking-to-improve feels safe and normal rather than combative.
How you know it stuck
The team asks to have its plans attacked because it wants the flaws found.
The idea behind it
Assigning someone to challenge the plan makes criticism part of the process rather than a personal act of opposition.
Where it comes from
Adversarial collaboration. A standing session whose job is to attack the team's own evidence and plans. A group meets to tear apart a paper's methods. A red team is assigned to attack a plan.