Sync Squad

Make the quality of a team's communication visible: whether people share what only they can see, listen before acting, and coordinate turn-taking under a genuinely interdependent task. A clean, low-stakes stand-in for cross-functional work where each person holds part of the picture.

Preparation & setup

• Get the group on a video call so they can talk freely while they play.
• The host creates a room and picks a squad size from two to six; a five-letter code appears.
• Share the code; everyone joins from a browser. Each player takes one colour and learns their controls; the camera floats above the whole chamber and can be rotated.

Running it, step by step

1. Look around first. Before anyone commits to a step, swing the camera and read the chamber layout from every angle.
2. Learn the colour rules. Your own colour can never hurt you; another colour can end your run in a single step. Half the game is spotting which dangers are yours to ignore and which belong to a teammate.
3. Say it out loud. Because each player sees different dangers, the squad that talks wins. Call out what's in front of you, agree who steps and when, and click any tile to drop a ping when pointing is faster than explaining.
4. Land together. A chamber only clears when all robots sit on their matching goals at the same moment. One robot short and nobody leaves.
5. Fail fast. When it goes wrong, hit R for an instant restart and try the next idea.

Debrief questions

• Who ended up coordinating turns, and did that role emerge or get chosen?
• When did instructions get lost or misheard — and what changed when they landed clearly?
• How did you decide whose information to act on when two people saw different things?
• Where does "the danger I can walk through is lethal to you" show up in how our team works?

Variations & tips

• Small teams / pairs: works from two players, so it's an easy manager-and-report exercise as well as a whole-team one.
• Non-gamers: no timer or reflex element, so people who "don't play games" can take it at their own pace.
• Add the evidence: for $30 the Team Building Bot produces a Team Dynamics Map, a Pressure Response Profile and a Key Moments analysis — showing who kept the channel clear when it got loud. Opt-in; a mirror for the team, never a dossier for the boss.

Sync Squad is part of the Superglue game library — browser-based team games for remote and hybrid groups. Free to play with a free account.

Run it here: https://playsuperglue.com/games/syncsquad