The Rehearsal Room · Tool 08

01The problem

The difficult assembly gives no warning. And nobody teaches you how to hold it: you learn by failing in the real room, where every failure costs legitimacy.

I represent two thousand people.

If the facilitator buys it, they have killed the process. Dismantling the mechanisms of legitimation (whoever shouts, whoever outlasts, whoever represents) can be trained. Almost nobody trains it.

The shopkeepers will be against it. It is mathematical.

Foreseeable conflicts arrive unprepared all the same: the real fear behind the opposition (not making it to the end of the month) is discovered in the room, when it is too late to design with it.

I've been at this for 20 years and nobody has taught me how to do a collaborative project.

There is no school and no manual: the trade is passed on scar by scar. What is missing is the gym where mistakes are cheap.

02How it works

The simulation is a working hypothesis for the team, never a substitute for the real actors.

It builds the actors from your Chart

From the real actor map (Tool 02), the AI embodies each profile: their realm, what they defend and, above all, the fear behind their conflict.

Rehearse the difficult room

The team practises against them: the eruption of the self-appointed representative, the blocking of the one who shouts, the defensive municipal officer. You try, you fail, you repeat, without spending real trust.

Run the pre-mortem and audit exclusion

The scenarios that kill processes (change of government, pilot with no funds, hostile press, sabotage at the end) are played out in advance. And the call is reviewed for whom it leaves out: time, language, format, place.

03The result

Actor cards with the anticipated conflict and its rehearsal line, and the traffic light of the scenarios nobody wants to look at.

Rehearsal Room · Plaza de la Estación process

assembly preparation · cycle 2

Working hypothesis · to be checked in Situate/Socialise · for internal team use

The shopkeeper on Calle Mayor

realm: market · pure

Where it will come from“No parking, no customers. You are driving us out.”

The real fearNot making it to the end of the month. The figure is the shield; the fear, the message.

What worked in rehearsalNot disputing the figure: asking how their sales are spread across the day and proposing to measure it together during the prototype.

The self-appointed representative

realm: social · with media capital

Where it will come from“I speak on behalf of two thousand neighbours”, at the end of the session, with the press tipped off.

The real fearLosing the role won after years of participating. They need a place, not a victory.

What worked in rehearsalNot buying the representation: “here we play by a different logic” + inviting them to the thematic cycle where their concrete knowledge really counts.

The planning officer

realm: institutional · hybrid

Where it will come from“This is not in the paperwork”: rigidity as an excuse at the decisive moment.

The real fearCarrying the responsibility if the experiment goes wrong. Nobody covers her.

What worked in rehearsalArriving with the precedent from another municipality and agreeing in writing which decision is hers and which belongs to the council plenary.

Pre-mortem traffic light

Scenario	Status	Preparation
Change of government in May	No plan	Nothing agreed with the opposition; the process is read along party lines.
The pilot runs out of funds	Halfway	There is budget for 2 months of prototype; the maintenance handover is missing.
Hostile local press	Covered	Single spokesperson agreed + publishable Living Minutes as a sourced response.

The third object, the Exclusion Audit, lists the profiles the current call leaves out and by which barrier: time, language, format or place, before concluding that “they are not interested”.

04Three rules that are not negotiable

Synthetic actors do not enter the real room

They are the team's sparring partners, never participants or anyone's spokespeople. The method's ethical line stays intact: facilitation is not delegated.

Every card is a hypothesis

It is checked in Situate and Socialise against the real actors. The simulation prepares listening; it does not replace it.

Conflicts yes, people no

Roles and mechanisms are rehearsed, never real people with names. The coral marks the anticipated conflict, not the neighbour.

The Rehearsal Room.