← Strategy & Decisions
Budget Battle
RankingRemote or in person
Fund five initiatives from a pot that covers three.
A ranking exercise dressed as a budget round. Teams order five plausible initiatives knowing only the top three get money. It gets a room arguing about trade-offs in a setting where nobody's actual budget is at stake, which is the only way most people will argue about it honestly.
Run this when…
The situations it was built for. If none of these is the room you have, it is probably the wrong activity.
- Budget or planning season
- A leadership team practising trade-offs
- A finance business-partnering workshop
How it runs
Order a list alone, then as a team. The gap between the two is the debrief.
- 1You start a session and put the code on the big screen.
- 2Everyone joins on their phone — no app, no sign-up, just the code.
- 3You drive the pace from the host screen; the room answers as they go.
- 4Ending the session builds the report, with every answer in it.
Running it well
Only the host sees these. Participants never do.
- Swap in five of your own real initiatives for the version that actually changes minds. Do that only in a room senior enough to handle it.
- Make them name what dies. A team that only talks about what it funded has avoided the exercise.
Run it yourself
Free for thirty days, no card. Add it, share the code, and your room is playing in about fifteen seconds.
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At a glance
- Players
- 6–150
- Runs for
- 12–20 min
- Where
- Remote or in person
- Big screen
- Required
- Teams
- Supported
- Best for
- Thinking together
What it builds
decision makingresource managementnegotiation