Facilitator agenda template
Time. Segment. Say. Do.
A facilitator agenda is the spine you hold while the room talks. Four columns. Nothing else earns a place on the page you will actually look at.
Time is clock time and minutes. “10:12 · 8m.” Not “about ten minutes of discussion.”
Segment is a named job. Open. Map. Decide. Close. If you cannot name the job, it is not a segment.
Say is the first sentence out of your mouth, plus the one line that ends the block. Write it in your voice. You will not invent it at 10:41.
Do is the physical move: timer, stickies, who stands, what gets photographed. Talking is not doing.
Filled example — 60-minute decision meeting
Room of six to nine. One decision that has been living in a thread. Print this page. Mark it in ink.
| Time | Segment | Say | Do |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9:00 5m |
Contract | We leave with a decision written as a sentence, an owner, and a date we will see proof. If we cannot decide, we write the missing fact and who will get it by Friday. We do not “align.” | Write DECISION / OWNER / DATE on the board. Visible timer. Phones down. 15-second round: what must be true at minute 60. |
| 9:05 8m |
The question | Here is the decision in one sentence. I will read the options we already have. Additions after I finish, thirty seconds, a name not a speech. | Tape the one-pager. Read the question and the two or three options. Capture adds on a parking strip. No ranking yet. |
| 9:13 12m |
Facts on the table | Ninety seconds each. The number or event that still surprises you. No rebuttals this round. If you disagree, write it down. We argue after everyone has spoken. | Timer at 1:30 per person. Scribe under SURPRISES. Star facts two people contest. Kill “we should.” |
| 9:25 18m |
Decide | We pick one option, or we pick the missing fact. A decision is a sentence a skeptic could quote. If you need a fourth option, you are stalling. | Silent write 4 minutes: one sentence. Place on the board. 60 seconds each. Two-dot vote. Write the winner clean. Ten seconds of silence. |
| 9:43 10m |
Owner and first proof | One human, not a function. What would a skeptic accept as first proof, and by what date. What we stop so this has air. | Fill OWNER / FIRST PROOF / DATE standing at the board. Name one stop. Photograph. |
| 9:53 7m |
Close | I will read what we decided in the words on the wall. Each of you, one breath: your 48-hour action. We do not add a rider in the doorway. | Read the board. 20-second round. Scribe names. End at 10:00 even if it is ugly. |
5 + 8 + 12 + 18 + 10 + 7 = 60. Put the sum at the top of your page. If the room is 45 minutes, cut Facts, not Decide, not Close.
Blank table
Copy this into a doc, or print and write. One row per segment. Empty cells are a warning.
| Time | Segment | Say | Do |
|---|---|---|---|
Rules for the page you hold
- One sheet if you can. Two if the day is long. Never a deck of agendas.
- Write Say in the voice you will use. “Welcome everyone and set context” is not a line you can speak.
- Do must name an object: board, timer, stickies, camera, bowl for phones.
- Breaks get a row. If they are not on the page, they will eat Decide.
- Keep participant prompts off this sheet. They have their own paper. See the participant workbook template.
- When a co-facilitator takes a block, put their name in Segment. Hand them the row, not the whole morning.
From this table into a kit
In Places, the facilitator run of show prints these columns from the kit: start clock, minutes, mode, segment, goal, say, do. The presenter console shows the current row, the countdown, and next-up so you are not squinting at a folded page while someone is mid-sentence.
Start the 90-minute 1:1s kit live · Print a live one-page run of show · Workshop run of show template · How to time a workshop · All guides