A 90-minute session is not going to resolve a disagreement about organizational direction, but it will resolve most of the tactical disagreements that get in the way of moving forward.
Why This Session Works
It combines three things that most prioritization processes leave out:
Time limits force decisions rather than endless deliberation.
A clear decision-making authority prevents the false consensus trap where everyone pretends to agree but no one actually does.
Structured steps keep the discussion on track and prevent hijacking by whoever has the loudest voice.
What Happens Next
The session produces three outputs:
The shortlist: 3 to 5 ideas you are advancing.
The parking lot: Ideas with merit that are not advancing now but might in the next cycle.
The declined: Ideas that do not fit and will not be revisited without a major change in circumstances.
Clarity on these three categories matters more than clarity on the shortlist. Most programs stumble because people never hear that their idea was declined. They think it is still under consideration. Months later they find out it was never going to happen. That is what kills participation.
What Works When the Easy Call Is Not Easy
Most idea selection is straightforward. You have clear criteria, you score the ideas against the criteria, the top scorers advance. Done.
But sometimes you have two ideas that score nearly equally and your intuition is split about which is stronger. Sometimes you have a unanimous high-quality idea and a divisive high-risk idea, and you have to make a real judgment call.
In those moments, the 90-minute session becomes a way to make the implicit explicit. You say: here is what makes these ideas hard to compare. Here is what the trade-off is. Here is what we are optimizing for. And then the decision-making authority makes a call based on that clarity.
That is different from endless discussion. It is decision-making with complete information and clear trade-offs.
How to Run It With a Distributed Team
The session works fine remotely if you keep the structure tight and use a shared doc for the real-time scoring. The energy is different than in person, but the outcome is usually the same.
Key: keep the time limits strict. Remote meetings have a tendency to meander. Do not let them.
The One Thing That Can Derail the Session
If the decision-making authority comes into the room without understanding the objective or the constraints, the session falls apart. They will either defer to the group (defeating the purpose of having authority) or override the group on a whim (defeating the purpose of the structured discussion).
Before the session, brief the decision-maker on the context, the criteria, and the rough landscape of ideas. They do not need to know which ideas you are leaning toward. They do need to understand the problem you are trying to solve and the constraints you are working within.
Related Guides
- How to Prioritize Ideas When Everything Feels Important
- The Idea Scoring Scorecard: 3 Models for Different Situations
- The Seven Skills of Effective Innovation Leaders
→ See our full comparison of the 10 best idea management tools
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