Example data. Fieldnote is a fictional company used to fill all 61 boards, so the examples tell one consistent story.
Scale-up Fieldnote, Karim writes the PR/FAQ for the recurring maintenance contracts line before any engineer is assigned.
What the team took away
The September overload question had no answer; the launch was moved to October and a visit-spreading rule was added to the scope.
How to run it
Preparation
The PM writes alone before the session: a full draft of the press release and at least ten FAQ questions. The four hours are for review, not writing.
Send the draft 48 hours before to the leads who will review it, with the instruction to read it fully and write comments in the document, not in email.
Pick a reviewer who does not know the project. Their confusion is the most useful signal you will get.
Print or pin one PR/FAQ you consider excellent so the bar is visible.
Agenda
30 min
Silent reading Everyone reads the whole document in silence, including those who read it before. Comments go in the margin. Nobody speaks.
30 min
Headline and first paragraph Would a customer stop scrolling on this headline? Does the first paragraph say who, what, and why it matters, with no adjectives? Rewrite live until yes.
45 min
Problem and solution Is the problem stated in the customer's terms with a number? Does the solution describe what the customer does, not what we build? The customer quote must sound like a real person.
15 min
Break Off the document.
60 min
The FAQ hunt Go through internal FAQs: cost, risks, dependencies, what we will not do, why now. Each reviewer adds the one question they would ask if they were funding it. Unanswered questions stay in the document, marked open.
40 min
Decide Three outcomes only: approved to move to a PRD, rewrite and re-review in a week, or stopped. The decider says which and names the top reason in the document.
20 min
Log the decision The PM writes the decision and open questions at the top of the document, with the date. Send the link the same day.
Pitfalls
Skipping the silent reading because 'everyone read it'. Half did not. Thirty minutes of silence saves two hours of arguing about a paragraph nobody read.
A press release full of 'seamless', 'powerful', 'innovative'. Delete every adjective and see if the story still stands.
Treating 'stopped' as failure. A project killed at PR/FAQ stage costs four hours. The same project killed at launch costs a quarter.
Afterwards
An approved PR/FAQ becomes the first page of the PRD and the source for the Launch plan. A rewrite comes back in a week; a stop is archived with its reason so nobody reopens it in six months without new information.