Committees

Open Committees in the menu, then New committee. The first question is What kind of committee?: each kind comes with a role, a cadence and a default pack, all of which you can change later.

Give it a Name, choose the Recurrence and the date of the First session, then Save. A recurring committee creates the next session itself when you close the previous one. An on-demand committee never creates a session on its own.

A committee's page shows its Sessions (upcoming, in session, closed, with attendees and the number of decisions) and its Pack: the sections presented in a session, in order. Tick a section to include it, untick it to remove it, move it with Up and Down.

On the right, the settings: the Role, the Cadence, the Next session, the Audience (for example CEO, CFO, CIO), and the Members, who receive the pre-read. A steerco attaches to A bet or A product: that is its scope. Archive the committee removes it from the list; its closed sessions stay readable in the decisions log.

Each section fills from today's data. Two are typed by hand, one is written automatically.

A section is marked For decision when it asks something of the room: bets to decide, gains to record or cases to review, open decisions, written asks. The others are For information.

From the list, the row's button reads Prepare, Open (the session is within the day) or Resume (it is live). The session page gives its date, its state (upcoming, in session, closed), the Attendees to tick, then In one page: the first sentence of what is to be decided, and one line per section.

Each section shows its sentence, or what it would say if there were something to say. Key message and Asks are typed on the page. Portfolio reading writes itself in about a minute; Reread the portfolio rewrites it.

Ask a decision expects a closed question ("do we stop X?") and, if you want, a subject: a bet or an initiative. The decision card carries the question, the subject, the three outcomes Yes, No, Deferred, a Reason, an Owner and a Due date.

• When the session opens, the decisions left unanswered in earlier closed sessions come back, marked "deferred since …".
• Bets that are due become decisions: Do we confirm "…"? when the target is reached, Do we stop "…"? when the date has passed. The bet's owner becomes the decision's owner.
• A business case brought to the committee arrives as a decision Do we commit … to …?: the card shows what it costs, what it brings, the payback and the break-even. Yes validates the business case.

Present goes full screen: In one page first, then one screen per section and one screen per decision. The arrows, the space bar and the page keys move; Esc leaves. Presenting an upcoming session opens it.

Close the session asks for confirmation and sums up the bets confirmed and abandoned. On closing, the pack and the decisions are frozen, the bet decisions are applied, a Yes on a money commitment validates the business case, and the next session is created at the committee's cadence. Undecided decisions come back to the next session.

• Pre-read (PDF) downloads the session's pack. Once the session is closed, the same link becomes Minutes (PDF).
• PowerPoint generates the deck: a cover with the committee, the date and "Figures as of …", In one page, one slide per screen with its For decision or For information mark, and a last slide "Decisions taken".
• Send the pre-read mails the committee's members the one-page summary with the PDF attached. It needs at least one member.

Decisions in the menu opens the log: every decision taken in session, most recent first, filterable by committee, by state (to do, taken, open, withdrawn) and Mine. A Yes not done yet is an action: tick Done when it is done. A yes that validated a business case offers Record the gain instead.

On an initiative's page, the Decisions field recalls the last decision taken about it: "Yes on … in …".