Silent Meetings

The document is the presenter, so a cold reader has to reach the recommendation without narration. Deck bullets often omit the reasoning a cold reader needs. Restore that reasoning in prose. Keep every gap labeled where it sits so the reader can ask the right question before deciding.

Decision sought: [One sentence. What the room is being asked to decide.]

1. Background   2. Data   3. Analysis
4. Recommendation   5. Risks and open questions   6. FAQ   Appendix

Gap labels, three forms and no others:
  [Data needed: what is missing. Owner: <name>]
  [Open question: the question. Owner: <name>]
  [Assumption: what is taken as true, and what it rests on. Owner: <name>]

Owner is a field inside all three, never a fourth label. It carries the name
the input gave. Only when nobody was named does it read: Owner needed

Reading time: NOT YET MEASURED. The owner times one slow read of the final
document and replaces this line before the document goes out.

The meeting is scheduled around the document, never the reverse. Name the owner, the note-taker, and the decision protocol before anyone sits down, so the close is mechanical instead of awkward. The reading block goes inside the meeting even when the document went out early: asking people to read in advance is an intention, the in-room block is the mechanism.

Silent meeting packet: [Meeting name]
Objective: [The decision or alignment the document exists to produce]
Owner: [Name]   Note-taker: [Name]   Decision protocol: [Who decides, how]
Document: [Title, format, page count]
Send document by: [At least 24 hours before start]
Reading time: NOT YET MEASURED. The owner times one slow read.

Run of show:
1. Open (1 min): "Does everyone have the document?"
2. Reading block ([N] min): silence holds, the owner reads too
3. Check-in (1 min): "Has everyone finished?" Then wait.
4. General comments ([N] min): reactions before any page detail
5. Page by page ([N] min): "Questions or comments on page 1?"
6. Decide and close (5 min): the call, then actions with owners and dates

Audit the document and meeting plan together. A strong document still fails operationally when the agenda has no reading block. Use four dimensions with three checks each. Every flag gets a fix, an owner, and a date. If the honest finding is that this should not be a meeting, the check says so.

FOUR DIMENSIONS, three checks each
- Talks for itself: a cold reader reaches the recommendation unaided
- Decision-shaped: the ask is one sentence, the protocol is named
- Complete and honest: every number sourced, every gap labeled in place
- Room-ready: sent 24 hours ahead, reading block scheduled, note-taker named

VERDICT: Ready | Ready with fixes | Not ready

MEASURES
- Was the decision reached by the scheduled close?
- Which clarification questions repeated?
- Did every action receive an owner and a date?

A lower question count is useful only when decision quality and participation
remain stable.

Expect the first run to feel unfamiliar. Sitting together and reading in silence changes the usual meeting sequence. Run the protocol once before adapting it; otherwise the team is evaluating an altered version rather than the mechanism described here.

ROLLOUT, in order
1. Explain the format before the first run. Two minutes covers it.
2. Pilot on a small group and a real but non-critical decision.
3. Run it clean. Follow the run of show exactly once before adapting.
4. Retro in ten minutes: what the document failed to answer.
5. Set the norms: blocks in invites, documents 24 hours ahead.
6. Expand meeting by meeting. Never convert a meeting with nothing to read.