The single document that replaces vague meeting invites. If the brief can't be filled in, the meeting shouldn't exist.
Most meetings fail before they start. Not because the wrong people are in the room — but because the person who called the meeting never answered the most basic question: what are we deciding?
The Decision Brief forces that answer. It is a short document — one page, rarely more — that must be completed before a meeting invitation is sent. If you cannot fill it in, the meeting has no reason to exist. If you can fill it in, you've already done the hardest work: defining the decision, naming the owner, and giving everyone the context they need to arrive prepared.
"A meeting without a decision brief is a room full of people hoping someone else prepared."
The Decision Brief operationalizes four ED3 principles at once. It forces you to name the decision before you meet (P1), assign a single owner (P2), frame the agenda as a decision rather than a topic (P4), and put the context in writing so no one wastes live time on status updates (P6).
The brief also serves as a forcing function for meeting quality. Many briefs, once started, reveal that a meeting isn't needed at all — the decision can be made asynchronously by the owner with written input. That's not a failure of the brief. That's the brief doing its job.
Copy this structure. Fill it in before sending a meeting invite. Circulate it as a pre-read at least 24 hours before the meeting.
Fill it in before scheduling
If you can't complete the brief, you're not ready to meet. That's a signal, not a failure. Do more research, narrow the options, or make the decision yourself.
Circulate as a pre-read
Attach the brief to the calendar invite. Send it at least 24 hours before. This replaces the first 15 minutes of every meeting where someone "sets the stage."
Open the meeting with the decision
"We're here to decide X. Sarah is the owner. You've read the brief. What questions do we need to resolve before Sarah can make this call?" That's your first sentence.
Record the outcome on the brief
After the meeting, update the brief with the actual decision, any dissent noted, and next steps with owners and dates. The brief becomes the decision record.
The brief is not just a meeting prep tool — it's a meeting filter. If any of these are true, cancel the meeting and decide asynchronously:
The owner already knows the answer and just needs sign-off. Send the brief with a 48-hour response window instead.
There's only one realistic option. Write it up, circulate it, let silence equal consent.
The "decision" is actually a status update. Move it to a document.
The context section is longer than the options section. More research is needed — not a meeting.
Download the template
A clean, tool-agnostic version you can adapt to your own workflow — Google Docs, Notion, Confluence, or plain text.