Free · draft template · interactive · about 5 minutes
Know your half before the meeting starts.
One page for a meeting where something will be asked, agreed or decided. Write the decision it must reach and who owns it, then for each agenda item the fact you hold, what is still unknown and who can answer. Add your two questions and what you will send beforehand. Copy a plain-text version, export the agenda as a CSV file or print the sheet on one page.
Not sure where to start? Read the guide on what to prepare before a meeting where something has to be decided: a short, plain walk through the decision, the facts you hold and the two questions, with a worked example.
This is a draft template, and every example on this page is fictional. Nothing is saved when the tab closes. What you type and check stays on this page: it is not saved, sent or stored, and there are no cookies. Reloading or closing the tab clears the form, so use Copy as text or Export CSV before you leave. Print gives you the filled sheet on one page.
Use it when you are about to meet someone who will ask you for something, or a group that will decide something; a date, scope, access or record will be agreed and you know only your half of the facts; or an AI tool wrote or tidied the request you are answering. Skip it when everyone already has all the facts and the yes is small (just say yes), or it is a one-way announcement with nothing to decide. Template 1 puts the time at about 5 minutes before, and 2 minutes after.
How to fill it in
- Write what the meeting is for, the day and time (24-hour) and who attends.
- Write the decision you want in one sentence, and who owns it: one name, a role, or Unknown. Mark where a name comes from. If the meeting is information only, say so.
- Add one box for each agenda item. Write the fact you hold and where it came from (their words, a record, or assumed), what is still unknown, and who can answer it.
- Write your two questions, as worded in template 1 of the pack (page 3): What don't I know that someone in this meeting does? and Who decides this, and what do they need from me first?
- Write what you will send beforehand and by when, so the fact they need before they can decide is not new in the room.
- Before you send the agenda, check a line only when it is true.
- During or after the meeting, fill in the closing block: what was decided (or proposed), who owns it and by when. Then copy the text, export the agenda rows or print the sheet. Nothing is saved here.
How to read it
- Read the warnings first. An item with no fact, or with no owner for the answer, is what to fix before the meeting. A box that says Unknown is a question to ask.
- An Assumed fact is listed as “Assumed, to check”, never as a fact. Turn it into a question.
- Watch for these three, from template 1: asking for agreement (“Is that OK?”) instead of asking for the missing fact. Asking someone who cannot decide. Leaving with “I’ll do it later” and no owner or time.
- For a regular 1:1 with open requests, the 1:1 agenda is built for it. For one conversation on paper, the two-question prep card is one page. This page is for a meeting that has to reach a decision.
- The warnings under the form are checks, not a score. They never stop you.
What it does not claim
- A name in Owner is who you believe decides, until that person confirms it. A tool or bot is never the owner.
- It does not know who owns what where you work, and it cannot tell you whether the other side will have the answer.
- It promises no result. A meeting can still end without a decision; the closing block is where you write what was decided, or what was proposed, with an owner and a time.
- It covers the meeting, the decision, the agenda items, the two questions, what to send and the closing block. The pack’s paper card also has a minute plan, a line for the proposal if nothing is decided and an AI check.
- It is practice material, not advice about a real situation. It is a draft template, the example is fictional and Otto is a fictional AI.
The example is the meeting prep in the fictional Scope Swap case, the pack’s own example case. The facts and both questions come from the case. It shows the state before the meeting: only what you hold is filled in, and what the other side holds is what the two questions are for. The closing block stays empty, because it is for the meeting. In the example the owner of the decision and who can answer the first item are Unknown, so the page flags them.
Your meeting prep
It is built from the form above and updates as you type. The facts come first. Blanks stay in [brackets]. Read it once and change anything before you send it.
Meeting prep (plain text)
The CSV has six columns: #, Agenda item, The fact I hold, Where the fact came from, Still unknown, Who can answer. It holds the agenda rows only, not the meeting, the decision, the two questions, what to send or the closing block.
Take it with you
Printable. The meeting prep is template 1 of the template pack draft, where it is called the meeting prep card: page 3 has the instructions, page 4 a blank card and page 5 a filled example on the fictional Scope Swap case (the same case as the example above). The paper pages have their own layout, a little different from this page, and the pack is a separate PDF. The Print button above prints this page’s own one-page sheet.
Download the template pack with the meeting prep card (A4 PDF, 247 KB) draft, template 1 on pages 3 to 5 ↓ US Letter PDF, 247 KB of the template pack with the meeting prep card ↓
Plain text. The site’s prep text template has eight bracketed lines you can paste into a note: the conversation, my half, their half, one fact, one question, who can decide, the AI line and after. It is also on the templates page.
Download the prep text template (TXT, 1 KB) with eight bracketed lines, the plain-text version ↓
Spreadsheet or notes tool. Two plain CSV files with the same six columns as this page’s export: a blank one, and the filled fictional Scope Swap example. They are comma-separated text, UTF-8, with the column names in the first row and no formulas. A tool such as Google Sheets or Notion can import a CSV file with its own CSV import.
Download blank meeting prep (CSV, 1 KB) for the meeting prep, draft template ↓ Download filled example meeting prep (CSV, 1 KB) for the meeting prep, fictional Scope Swap case ↓
- Download the blank CSV, or the filled example to see how it looks.
- Open your spreadsheet or notes tool and use its own CSV import. Menu names differ by product and version, so this page does not list them: look for an import option that takes a CSV (comma-separated) file.
- Choose the file you downloaded. If the tool asks for a separator, choose comma. If it asks for the text encoding, choose UTF-8.
- Check that the first row became the six column names and that each column landed in its own column. Fix it in your tool if not.
- Add your rows there. The Export CSV button on this page gives you the same six columns back.
The CSV files are drafts and the example is fictional (the Scope Swap case). A cell that starts with = + - or @ gets a single quote in front when you export, so a spreadsheet never reads it as a formula.
A meeting prep lists what you hold and what is missing; it is not for winning an argument or for guessing why someone did something. Write the fact, not the reason. Not sure what is a fact? Practice it in three minutes. This page is practice material, not advice about a real situation. It is template 1 of the template pack.
Practice the two questions first.
Play a short fictional case, ask for the missing facts and see who decides.
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