Purpose
Produce a fully sequenced, time-boxed CAB or executive council agenda that turns a set of strategic questions and product themes into facilitated discussion blocks designed to extract usable input from senior customer stakeholders — solving the common failure mode where high-cost executive sessions drift into status updates and produce no decision-grade insight.
When to Use
Invoke this skill when the user asks to:
- Build an agenda for a Customer Advisory Board (CAB) meeting
- Plan an executive council or customer advisory summit
- Structure a half-day or full-day strategic input session with senior customers
- Design facilitated discussion blocks around specific product or strategy questions
- Turn a list of strategic questions into a timed, facilitated session flow
- Create a pre-read and feedback-capture plan for an executive program event
Inputs Required
Before starting, collect:
- Strategic questions: The 2–5 questions the company most needs senior customer input on
- Product/strategy themes: Roadmap areas, market shifts, or initiatives up for discussion
- Audience seniority: Titles attending (e.g., VPs, CIOs, CXOs) and approximate group size
- Session length: Total time available (e.g., 90 min, half-day, full-day)
- Format: In-person / virtual / hybrid
- Desired outcomes: What the company must walk away with (validation, prioritization, objections, net-new ideas)
- Hosting executives: Which internal leaders will present or facilitate, if known
If desired outcomes or hosting executives are missing, default to a validation-plus-prioritization goal and assume a product/strategy leader hosts the core discussion blocks; note the assumption.
Instructions
Step 1: Confirm Session Math and Block Budget
Establish the time envelope before designing content.
- Reserve 15% of total time for opening/welcome and 10% for closing/next-steps.
- Reserve 10–15 min for a break in any session over 2 hours; two breaks for full-day.
- Allocate the remaining time across discussion blocks. Target 35–50 min per strategic question — never less than 25, because senior attendees need warm-up time before candid input.
- If the number of strategic questions exceeds the available block time, recommend cutting to the highest-leverage questions rather than compressing each below 25 min.
Step 2: Sequence the Discussion Blocks Using the Engagement Arc
Order blocks so candor and energy build correctly.
- Orientation block — frame the session, ground rules, and what "good input" looks like. Senior attendees give more when told the company genuinely wants disagreement.
- Warm, lower-stakes block first — open with the theme most attendees have strong opinions on, to establish a talking norm before harder questions.
- Highest-stakes strategic question in the second-to-prime slot (roughly 40–60% into the agenda) — peak attention, post-warm-up candor.
- Forward-looking / co-creation block near the end — let attendees shape what comes next, which raises commitment and satisfaction. - Avoid placing the most important question last; energy and time pressure degrade quality.
Step 3: Design Each Discussion Block With a Facilitation Structure
For every strategic question or theme, build the block to this internal shape:
- Block title and time box (start–end on the clock).
- Framing (3–5 min): How the internal host introduces the question — including the specific decision this input will feed and any constraints attendees should know.
- Facilitation method: Choose one and justify it by audience size — small group (≤8) use open round-robin; mid group (9–15) use structured prompt + go-around; large group (16+) use breakout pairs reporting back or live polling first to surface dissent.
- 3 primary facilitation prompts: Open, specific, non-leading questions written in plain language. Include at least one "where are we wrong?" challenge prompt per high-stakes block.
- Probe prompts (2): Follow-ups to deepen thin answers ("What would have to be true for that to change?" / "Who internally would block this and why?").
- Capture instruction: What the scribe records — decisions requested, dissent, ranked priorities, or verbatim quotes.
Step 4: Build the Pre-Read Package
Specify what attendees receive in advance so live time is for input, not briefing.
- Send timing: 5–7 business days before the session.
- Length cap: No more than 4 pages or a 6-slide deck — executives won't read more.
- Contents: The strategic questions verbatim, one-paragraph context per theme, any data/roadmap visuals needed to react, and a single explicit ask ("Come prepared to react to questions 2 and 4").
- Flag any block whose quality depends on the pre-read being completed.
Step 5: Build the Feedback-Capture and Synthesis Plan
Define how raw input becomes decision-grade output.
- Live capture roles: Assign a dedicated scribe per discussion block (not the facilitator).
- Capture template fields: Question → Key themes → Points of disagreement → Ranked priorities → Direct quotes → Follow-up commitments.
- Same-day debrief: 30-min internal huddle within 24 hours to lock the top 3 takeaways while memory is fresh.
- Closeout to attendees: A "you said / we will" recap sent within 10 business days — the single biggest driver of repeat CAB participation.
Step 6: Assemble the Run-of-Show
Produce the final agenda as a clock-based run-of-show table covering every minute, plus the supporting plans from Steps 4–5.
Output Format
- Structure: Clock-based run-of-show table for the full session, followed by an expanded facilitation detail section per discussion block, followed by the pre-read package spec and the feedback-capture plan
- Length: 1,000–1,500 words
- Format: Run-of-show as a table (Time | Block | Owner | Method | Output); facilitation details and prompts as structured bullets; pre-read and capture plans as bulleted specs
- Sections: Session summary (length, format, goals) → Run-of-show table → Per-block facilitation detail → Pre-read package → Feedback-capture & synthesis plan
- Tone: Executive programs lead — precise, time-disciplined, designed for real-room facilitation, not aspirational
Quality Checklist
Before delivering output, verify:
- [ ] Every minute of the stated session length is accounted for in the run-of-show (block times sum to total time)
- [ ] Each strategic question gets at least 25 minutes of dedicated block time
- [ ] Every discussion block includes 3 primary prompts plus 2 probe prompts written specifically — not generic placeholders
- [ ] The highest-stakes question is placed in the engagement-arc prime slot, not last
- [ ] At least one challenge/"where are we wrong" prompt appears in the high-stakes blocks
- [ ] The feedback-capture plan names a per-block scribe and a closeout timeline to attendees
Notes
- The fastest way to ruin a CAB is treating it as a roadmap presentation; if the agenda has more company talk-time than customer talk-time, rebalance toward facilitated discussion.
- For mixed-seniority rooms, the most senior voice often anchors the discussion — use breakout pairs or anonymous polling first when you need honest dissent from a CXO-heavy group.
- The "you said / we will" closeout is what converts a one-time session into a standing advisory relationship; never skip it even when input was inconclusive.
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