Example data. Fieldnote is a fictional company used to fill all 61 boards, so the examples tell one consistent story.
Post-PMF Fieldnote: the invoicing integration partner has to be picked this month, and the debate has been going around in Slack for three weeks.
What the team took away
Writing the options side by side ended the Slack thread in one meeting: Pennylane first, Sage scheduled, and Nadia stops promising both to prospects.
How to run it
Preparation
Name the Driver before the meeting. If nobody volunteers, the meeting is premature.
Send a one-paragraph statement of the decision to make, with a deadline, 48 hours before.
Put the four roles as empty boxes on the board plus two boxes: Options considered, Decision.
Agenda
10 min
Frame the decision The Driver reads the decision statement. The group rewrites it until it is one sentence that can be answered yes or no, or by choosing one option.
10 min
Fill the roles Driver, one Approver, Contributors, Informed. If the Approver is not in the room, stop and reschedule.
15 min
List the options Contributors add every serious option, including doing nothing. Each option gets one line of pros and one line of cons.
15 min
Recommend The Driver states a recommendation and why. Contributors challenge it for 10 minutes maximum.
10 min
Decide and record The Approver decides. Write the decision, the date, and the reasoning in the Decision box. Post it to the Informed list before leaving.
Pitfalls
Do not run the workshop with two Approvers. If two people must sign off, escalate to the person above them.
Write the options before the recommendation. If the Driver starts with the answer, Contributors only argue against it.
Record the reasoning, not just the outcome. In six months nobody remembers why, and the decision gets reopened.
Afterwards
The document is linked from the project page and becomes the reference when the decision is questioned. Recurring stuck decisions across the team are a signal to run a RACI on the underlying process.