This involved each writing down a suggested topic, revealing them all, and then after a fixed timer expired standing behind our preferred one with not further discussion. Using this method, we eventually agreed unanimously on first organising a LessWrong Punt trip
I took a note of how long each part of the decision method took:
Write the topic titles down on napkins − 1 minute
Discuss what the topic titles meant and make alterations to them − 3 minutes
Decide between the proposed topic titles − 10 seconds
This substantially beats the 10+ minutes this process was taking.
We did, however, spend a while at the start of this meeting deciding which meeting format to use. It would be nice if we could pick a meeting format for the next meeting to default to unless changed before the next meeting starts. Maybe that can be done in a conditional manner such as: “If Ben has brought his diary notes, then XXX. Else, if 6+ people, then YYY. Else ZZZ.”
I took a note of how long each part of the decision method took:
Write the topic titles down on napkins − 1 minute
Discuss what the topic titles meant and make alterations to them − 3 minutes
Decide between the proposed topic titles − 10 seconds
This substantially beats the 10+ minutes this process was taking.
We did, however, spend a while at the start of this meeting deciding which meeting format to use. It would be nice if we could pick a meeting format for the next meeting to default to unless changed before the next meeting starts. Maybe that can be done in a conditional manner such as: “If Ben has brought his diary notes, then XXX. Else, if 6+ people, then YYY. Else ZZZ.”