Meeting Design Guide: Exploring Options and Tradeoffs

Use this guide if you are convening a standalone meeting or requesting time in a standing meeting to compare viable options before recommending a decision. In this meeting you help the group understand the options, tradeoffs, and surface remaining questions.

Use this when: the decision has been scoped, input has been gathered, and there are multiple plausible paths forward.

Do not use this when: The decision itself is still unclear. For that, use Meeting Design Guide: Scoping a Decision Process. Do not use this when you already have a final recommendation and need feedback on it. For that, use Meeting Design Guide: Getting Input or Feedback on a Decision.

Sample Objectives - choose from this list or write your own

Everyone understands the viable options and the tradeoffs between them
The group has surfaced strengths, risks, concerns, and unanswered questions for each option
The recommender understands which criteria matter most to the people involved
The group has identified what additional information is needed before a recommendation can be made
Everyone is clear on next steps: who will refine the options, gather any remaining information, and prepare the recommendation

Before the Meeting

As the person driving this decision-making process, prepare a short options summary. The summary does not need to argue for one path yet. The point is to give people something concrete to react to and improve.

Options Summary Outline

It is also helpful to share the decision scope summary for context. Learn more about this here or here.

Suggested Flow

Time	What	How
1 min	Opening	State the objective: “By the end of this conversation, we want to understand the viable options, the tradeoffs between them, and what we still need to answer before making a recommendation.”
5 min	Present the options	Walk through the options summary. Keep this brief. Name the criteria, options, known tradeoffs, and what still feels uncertain.
7 min	Silent review	For each option:
• *What would need to be true for you to choose this?
• What additional information would make the recommendation stronger?
• What open questions would you need answered to support moving forward?*
10 min	Structured discussion	Go through each option one-by-one and ask for input from the group based on the silent reflection.
2 min	Close and next steps	Confirm who will refine the options, gather remaining information, and prepare the recommendation. Remind everyone who the final decision maker is and the timeline.

Estimated total: 25 minutes

Tips for Leading This Effectively

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Make the phase explicit. Say directly: “We are exploring options, not deciding today.”
Do not let the loudest advocate turn the meeting into a campaign for one option. Use silent reflection and small groups to get more balanced input and give each option due consideration.
Keep criteria visible. If the conversation gets stuck in preferences, bring people back to the criteria that should guide the decision (from the scoping phase)
Capture tradeoffs, not just pros and cons. A tradeoff is what the organization is choosing to prioritize or give up, and every choice comes with tradeoffs.
End by naming what will happen next with the input. </aside>

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For a Standalone Meeting

If you're running this as its own meeting, not adding this topic to an existing standing agenda, consider adding these elements.

Suggested warm-up question

“Think about a big purchase you made in your personal life. When you were comparing options, what helped you evaluate them as objectively as possible?”

This gets people thinking about how to evaluate options thoughtfully before they start advocating.

Suggested check-out question

“What is the top question you’d like to see answered before we make a final decision?”

Housekeeping tips

Share the options summary as a pre-read so people come prepared
Clarify that the meeting is for exploring options, not making the final decision
Use a parking lot for new options that are out of scope or not ready to evaluate </aside>