Trio advice

A peer-consultation structure in groups of three, in four steps of ten minutes per case altogether. One person brings a real question from their own practice (two minutes); the two others, the consultants, ask clarifying questions without giving advice (two minutes); then the presenter turns their chair away and listens while the consultants talk out loud to each other about the question, as if the presenter were not there — they take notes and say nothing (four minutes); and they turn back and say what was usable and what they will try (two minutes). Then the role moves on to the next presenter. All trios in the room run the same step at the same time, on one timer. In the Liberating Structures the structure is called Troika Consulting.

Because otherwise they join in. As long as the presenter is looking at the consultants, the consultants talk to them and weigh every word against their face; at the first objection — "yes but I tried that" — they stop. With their back to the two, the presenter cannot say anything back, so they have nothing to defend: they can only listen, and that is the gift. The consultants also say more about "them" than they would say to "you", and their third thought is usually the best — it only comes if the first two have not been refuted. It is the same move as in the Gossip Method, in three instead of eight.

One case is ten minutes with the default times — 2, 2, 4 and 2 — and a quarter of an hour with the change of role. The player runs three cases by default, so that everyone in a trio has been the presenter once: three quarters of an hour with the reflection at the end, half an hour if the changes go smoothly. Whoever prepares the structure sets the time per step and chooses the number of cases, from one to five. Groups of four or five need four or five cases if everyone is to have a turn — or you agree that two members stay consultants this time.

Three is the structure: one presenter, two consultants who talk to each other. Two consultants are enough for a conversation to listen to and few enough for both to have their say in four minutes. The player allows three to five per group for a group that does not divide by three — then make one group of four rather than a pair, because with one consultant there is no conversation to listen to. In the room the player counts from six to forty; above forty, split the hall and run it twice.

A real, concrete and small one: something from the presenter's own practice of the past few weeks that they are stuck on now and that can be told in two minutes. "How do I open the conversation with that parent?", "how do I get the third group working without standing next to it all the time?" Not a life story and not a question that needs a decision from the team. Have every presenter end with the sentence the player asks for — "what do I want help with?" — because that is the question the consultants are going to answer. There is deliberately no field for a case in the preparation: a prepared question would work against the structure, the questions come from the room.

Not by joining in. The player does the time: every trio sees the same step and the same timer on the screen or on a phone through the live link, and changes at the same moment. You do the rules, walking around, and there are three that matter. In step 2: no advice yet — say it once out loud at the trio where you hear "have you tried…". In step 3: the presenter really sits turned away and the consultants talk to each other, not to their back. In step 4: the harvest belongs to the presenter, two minutes, then on. Let the trios pick who starts, that is faster than assigning. And as the facilitator, do the structure once as the presenter yourself, in a different trio from the one you are guiding: nothing makes the rules as convincing as someone who has sat turned away for four minutes themselves.

Then they are a consultant in that round, and that is fine: two presenters in a trio saves a round. Better to prevent it: say a day ahead that everyone brings one real question, and give the theme if you want one. Whoever says they have no question usually has one when asked — "something that annoyed you this week" is a good opener. A question invented on the spot yields polite advice, and that is the only way this structure fails.

The same move — the presenter turns away and listens while others talk about their situation — but at a different scale. The Gossip Method does it with the whole group of four to eight, for ten minutes, with seven minutes of exploring before and a look back at the conversation after: one case per three quarters of an hour, and the yield is an honest mirror. Trio advice does it in three, for four minutes, and ends with advice: three cases per three quarters of an hour, and everyone has had a turn. Rule of thumb: trio advice when everyone has a question; Gossip Method when one person needs an honest picture.

The Incident Method examines one incident with the whole group in eight steps and three quarters of an hour: the incident is told without its ending, the group analyses blind and writes alternatives, and only then hears what the presenter did. Trio advice is the light counterpart: no analysis, no withheld ending, but two consultants thinking out loud for four minutes. Choose the Incident Method when the team wants to know what you can do in one moment; trio advice when everyone wants to go home today with their own question answered.

From about age 10 it can, with a school question and you walking around: steps at 1-1-2-1, the presenter takes notes, and the theme is small and their own — the presentation, the group, the planning. In upper secondary and vocational education the structure works as intended, especially around placements: a placement question is real and belongs to someone who is back there tomorrow. Younger than about 10, turning away is too early — the consultants are talking to the asker again after twenty seconds — and Pair Coach does the helping in pairs with questions instead of advice.

Yes, and it is one of the peer-consultation structures that loses least online: each trio in its own breakout room, and the player shared in the main room or on everyone's screen through the live link, so all trios see the same step and the same timer. Turning the chair away becomes camera off and microphone muted; the consultants use the presenter's name, because without a visible back they forget more quickly that the presenter is listening in. In step 4 the camera goes back on.

Trio advice is our name for Troika Consulting, one of the Liberating Structures of Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless: thirty-three structures that put a group to work in short, tightly timed steps so that everyone takes part instead of the fastest speaker. Troika Consulting reduces the core of peer consultation — a real question, clarify before advising, and listen without defending — to ten minutes in threes. The turned-away chair it shares with the Dutch intervision tradition of the Gossip Method, which makes the same move with the whole group.