Write the answer first

On the first day of every engagement we write the page we expect to hand over at the end. It is usually wrong. That is the point: it tells the team which facts would change it, and those are the only facts worth collecting.

Cut until it hurts

In this demo example, the board paper shrank from 48 pages to one over six drafts. Nothing important was lost; it moved to an appendix nobody needed to read.

• One decision, stated in the first sentence

• Three reasons, each with its number

• One page of risks and what we would watch

Why it works

A single page can be read in the meeting, argued with and remembered. A deck cannot.