How to run a steering update without slides

A steering group exists to decide: priorities, trade-offs, money, and the things the project team can’t settle alone. A deck pulls the meeting toward presenting. The first half hour goes on walking through slides the group could have read in five minutes, questions about formatting replace questions about the work, and the decisions get squeezed into the last ten minutes or pushed to next month.

Slides also take the project lead a day or more to assemble, mostly by copying facts that already exist somewhere else. That is a day not spent on the work the group is there to steer.

• The call: on track, at risk, or slipping, against the date that matters, with one line on why.
• Progress on each deliverable: where it stands, its due date, and a link to the evidence behind it.
• Decisions needed: each written as a question with options and the team’s recommendation.
• Risks: the two or three that matter most, each with an owner and the next step.
• Since last time: what the group decided at the last meeting and what happened as a result.

If it doesn’t fit on one page, it isn’t ready. Cut detail before you cut decisions.

A steering decision written as a topic (“Vendor update”) invites discussion. Written as a question with options, it invites a choice. Give each option its consequence in one line, mark the one the team recommends, and say what happens if the group doesn’t decide today.

1. 1Send the page aheadA day or two before, so the group can read it in their own time. Point to the decisions in the first line of the email.
2. 2Open with silent readingGive everyone five minutes to read the page in the meeting, even if they read it beforehand. It puts the whole room on the same facts before anyone speaks.
3. 3Take questions on the pageTen minutes at most. Questions that need research become actions with an owner rather than live debate.
4. 4Decide, one item at a timeRead the question and the options, hear the recommendation, and ask for a choice. Record each decision with its owner and date before moving on.
5. 5Close by reading back the decisionsTwo minutes. Everyone leaves agreeing on what was decided, by whom, and what happens next.

Send the decisions within the hour, in writing, to everyone who attended and anyone affected. Update the page so the next meeting’s “since last time” section starts from them. A group that sees its decisions acted on quickly comes to the next meeting ready to decide again.

Keep a single chart when a trend matters more than a number, such as spend over time or a forecast date moving week by week. Keep a short deck for a board or an outside audience that expects one. Even then, put the decisions first and treat the slides as an appendix.

The sponsor’s page in Unblockd is a ready-made pre-read: the call, progress on each deliverable with its evidence, and what needs them, kept current from the project. Decisions go out as asks with options and a recommendation, and each answer is recorded with who decided and when. See stakeholder and executive updates.