create deliberate agendas

29 Sep, 2026

for groups

This tactic draws attention to the art of organizing and structuring your conversations to reflect various strategies and intentions. The word "deliberate" here is to focus attention on the purpose of creating an agenda for a conversation.

Often, agendas are created in a somewhat rote format as an administrative task (date/time/participants/and topics). While that can be enough to get things going, and sometimes have a successful meeting, there is a lot more work that can be done to really leverage the use of an agenda. It's said that a good interviewer focuses on two things - preparing and listening. Same goes for someone hosting, convening and supporting conversations.

A large portion of the task involved in having better discussions about computer use is moving them away from hype to reality, out of abstractions and into context. Agendas offer a lightweight but material opportunity to write a different frame, to start to tell different stories. It cannot be stressed enough that there is a major chill on people's speech and a hesitation to say what they really think about computer use. Seeing words and questions in writing and on a page that confirm their experience or sentiments is an extremely powerful experience. Do not discount your capacity to make this happen in a group setting, and the role that a circulated agenda can play in this work.

Creating a one-page (tops) agenda with a few specific questions to get people talking is an increment of work effort that is manageable. Some logistics tips about content and process for agenda creation and distribution include:

1. Share agendas as "draft proposed" documents, enabling others to edit/add/revise and simultaneously signaling their co-ownership of the conversation.
   
2. If the group is small enough, leave good room for introductions - being interested in each other in practice is part of what this work is about.
   
3. Ask about recording and note-taking at the beginning. Do not default to recording a meeting, and remember that if you want to record it, you are altering the nature of the discussion and these are conversations that include elements of people being uncertain, ashamed, or fearful. Transcripts in contexts such as this are generally not necessary nor necessarily helpful. This includes the chat function of an online call, if it's in use.
   
4. Prioritize the experience of the people that are there, not those who couldn't make it.
5. Develop a process where note-taking is done without attribution, if it's done at all. In the context of talking about unfamiliar things, the load is lightened by allowing for verbal and physical exchanges that aren't captured forever. This, again, is part of the work in exploring a reduction of data generation and capture.
   
6. Provide some context up-front - this is a chance to set the table and test out narratives and stories that you hope will be repeatable and useful for attendees. Ask for critical feedback in the spirit of "we're doing a hard thing here, it's helpful for all of us to know what's working and what's not".
   
7. Be a proud practitioner of saying "I don't know". If something comes up where you don't know the answer, you can always find it out after, or start trying to. Expect this to happen.
   
8. When the meeting or conversation closes, share a rough idea of next steps, and if you have decided to share some minimal summary or notes of the conversation, you can offer to receive additional feedback in writing for the next few weeks. Some people much prefer to share thoughts in writing, which can be part of these processes. If you receive notes in writing that you include in a summary to those that were at the meeting, identify them as such (more on these steps - summary and reporting, later).
   
9. Rather than just having an open discussion portion listed on the agenda, seed the agenda with a few discussion questions, and include "other?", again this is an opportunity to practice restructuring narrative, and to signal co-production and openness to a range of topics/starting points.
   

Agendas are known in general terms as administrative objects. But in the case of reorganizing conversations about computer use, they have a bigger role to play. Even if a meeting or conversation does not go as planned, developing a deliberate agenda is a way to implement and practice the application of the strategies. Consider and review them prior to sitting down to create your first draft.