A Devil's Advocate is someone who will bring up a contrarian or opposing view, to challenge the ideas or plans of the group. Often, the Devil's Advocate doesn't actually support this contrarian view, but they bring it up to force the team to defend the plan.

The Devil's Advocate can ask questions like "can you defend that choice?", or "what happens if we're wrong about our estimated pace?" or "what if we're wrong and that slope slides...then what?"

It can be socially taxing to take on this role, so we recommend assigning someone to play the role, and to change who will play the role throughout a day. It's much easier to maintain friendships when you can attribute your contrarian idea to the role assigned to you. It can also be challenging to listen to someone who is constantly presenting contrarian opinions, so everyone needs to be open to the idea.