The Buddy Protocol + 60-Day Retro
Cohort accountability · Works when you use it · One page front + back
You just learned the pattern. The muscle grows with reps. This protocol puts you in a peer-accountability pair for 60 days. Your buddy is not your therapist. Your buddy is a mirror — and a deadline.
How pairing works
- Every cohort member is paired with one other on workshop day. If the cohort is odd-numbered, one triad forms.
- Pairs are chosen for complementary orgs, not similar ones — a nonprofit director with a studio lead, a research PI with a solo founder. Cross-pollination is the point.
- You exchange: email, preferred meeting time, one sentence on what you most want to build in the next 60 days.
The weekly 30-minute trade
One video call or voice call per week. Same day of the week. Same time. Put it in the calendar. Same structure every time:
First 5 minutes
What did you ship this week?
Not "worked on." Shipped. Commits pushed, emails sent, sessions run. If nothing shipped, say that.
Next 10 minutes
What's stuck?
Technical, strategic, emotional. Buddy asks one clarifying question. No solutions yet.
Next 10 minutes
What's the one thing you'll ship before our next call?
One. Specific. Ship-able in a week. Buddy can push back if it's vague.
Last 5 minutes
What's the question I didn't ask?
The cheat-code question. Often surfaces the real issue the hour-long version would have danced around.
The 4-week arc
Week 1 — Anchor
Foundation
- Confirm your 3 agents. Confirm your state files exist. Run one real session.
- Ship: your first Spark-drafted email (reviewed, sent).
- Buddy check: did you run your session protocol at close?
Week 2 — Rhythm
Habit
- Run 3 Spark sessions minimum this week. Quantity over depth.
- Ship: one thing that would not have shipped without Spark.
- Buddy check: which agent is doing the most for you? Which is underused?
Week 3 — Stretch
Depth
- Author one new custom agent for something the library didn't cover.
- Or: deepen an existing agent with a failure-mode you've actually hit.
- Ship: a piece of work you'd feel comfortable showing a funder.
- Buddy check: is your decision journal actually getting used?
Week 4 — Audit
Consolidation
- Read back through your activity-log for the month. Where did Spark save time? Where did it stall?
- Prune: what are you over-asking the system to do? Cut it.
- Ship: a clean handoff document that would let someone else run your Spark for a week.
- Buddy check: what one change will you make for Month 2?
Weeks 5–8 — Repeat the arc
Second pass. Same 4 weeks, deeper. Your buddy keeps you honest. You keep them honest. Same 30-minute call structure, same day, same time. If one of you misses two weeks in a row, the protocol kicks in: the other sends a text, not a guilt trip.
Day 60 — The group retrospective
The whole cohort meets (virtual is fine). 90 minutes. No laptops open. We go around and every attendee fills four cells. Then we share. Then we decide what Cohort 02 should do differently.
Kept
What did you keep using? The habits, agents, rituals that stuck.
Killed
What did you abandon? The agents that didn't earn their place. Be honest.
Added
What did you build that wasn't in the workshop? Custom agents, new rituals, new state files.
Asked
What do you wish we'd covered on Day 1? Goes into Cohort 02.
Everyone gets a 4-minute share window. No solutions, no advice, no "have you tried" — just listening. At the end, we collect the Asked column and publish it as the cohort's contribution to the next workshop.
The promise
From you30 minutes a week, 8 weeks. Show up. Ship something. Be honest about what stalled.
From usA retro host, a recording, and a commitment to fold your learnings into the next cohort's Hour 1. Your cohort becomes the next cohort's foundation.