The Budget Was Fine. Until It Wasn’t.
What a Coaching Scenario is
Not quiz style. This is judgement practice — you're put inside a real situation from human-services work and asked what you would actually do. It draws on the knowledge you use on the job, not the kind you can look up.
Every choice changes what happens next, and every choice gets a coaching beat straight after it: what drew you toward that option, and how it played out. What's held back is the verdict on your path, so you stay with what you'd genuinely do rather than working out what you're supposed to say.
- 4 decisions
- Each one shaped by the one before it. No two paths through are the same.
- Coaching as you go
- A beat after every decision, naming the pull behind your choice and where it led.
- A full debrief
- Your whole path replayed at the end, with the reasoning behind each decision you made.
- Evidence you can keep
- A completed scenario is recorded in your PracticeLab and appears in your downloadable ProofKit.
Scenarios are made to be talked about. Most people finish one still turning it over, which makes them a ready-made prompt for supervision, a team meeting or a conversation with a colleague — everyone walks the same situation, and comparing where you each landed is often where the real learning happens.
This one ends with
Next time a time-pressured financial decision comes to the board, ask yourself: am I being asked to endorse management's work, or am I being asked to exercise independent judgement on information I've actually tested?
The situation
Tuora Community Health is a mid-sized not-for-profit running primary health and social services from a premises it owns. Six months ago, the board approved the annual budget — it was tight but workable, projecting a small surplus. You are a board member on the finance and audit subcommittee.
At this month's board meeting, the CFO, Emilia, tables an urgent item. The organisation's fixed-rate mortgage expires in eleven weeks. The bank has offered a renewal, but the new interest rate is significantly higher — adding roughly $47,000 to annual interest costs. Emilia says she has modelled three scenarios: accept the bank's offer, approach two alternative lenders, or extend the current rate for a short bridging period while the board considers options. She says the board needs to provide direction within two weeks or the bank's offer lapses.
The board chair, Wiremu, opens discussion. Several board members look relieved that Emilia has already done the modelling — there's a sense in the room that management has this in hand and the board just needs to sign off. But you notice that Emilia's report doesn't include the full loan documents, doesn't address the covenant conditions attached to the new loan, and doesn't show what the $47,000 cost increase does to the budget surplus you approved six months ago. The numbers, as presented, only just work — and that's before any service demand pressures in the second half of the year.
Wiremu invites the board to respond to Emilia's recommendation to accept the bank's offer.
What you're practising
Before you start, notice
Real-world decisions in scenarios like this are shaped as much by feeling as by reasoning. People often notice one of these pulls — naming what you feel before you decide is half the skill.
- Relief that management has done the work — and the pull to ratify rather than interrogate
- Time pressure as a reason to trust rather than a reason to be more careful
- Discomfort with slowing things down when colleagues seem ready to move
- Anxiety about appearing to lack financial expertise in a room where others seem confident
- The urge to defer to the CFO rather than hold her work to account
Policies this draws on
- Charities Act 2005 (NZ) / Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Act 2012
- Your organisation's financial delegations policy
- Your organisation's treasury / borrowings policy
- Not-for-profit governance standards (AICD / IoD)
- Your own organisation's policies take precedence — check them where they apply.
Heads up — coaching scenarios work differently. You'll make a sequence of decisions as the situation unfolds, and after each one you'll get a coaching beat: what drew you toward that choice, and how it played out. The one thing held back is the verdict on the path you took — that lands in the debrief at the end, with your whole walk replayed alongside it.
New to Good Practice Hub? Coaching Scenarios come with PracticeLab Pro, or browse the practice library to see what else is there.
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