TJ Walker argues agendas should map the thinking process, not just list topics. He calls this phase control: moving groups through distinct stages of generating ideas, organizing them, narrowing options, and deciding. This prevents mixing reactions with ideas and leads to clearer outcomes.
Ultimize. One of the fastest ways to spot a weak facilitator is to look at their agenda. If it's just a list of topics, you already know how the session's going to feel— disconnected, uneven, hard to finish. I've seen this in countless organizations. The agenda looks organized. There's strategy, marketing, hiring, but that's not really a structure. That's a table of contents. And what happens in the session? Each topic opens up into a discussion. Some go long, some get rushed. The important decisions happen at the end, if they happen at all. Now, here's the shift. Your agenda should not describe what you'll talk about. It should describe how the group will think, not what they'll think, but the process of how they'll think. For example, instead of let's discuss priorities, you say, First, we'll generate ideas. Then we'll group them. Then we'll narrow them. Then we'll decide. You're not coming in this with some decision premade. You want to facilitate the ideas from within the group. But it has to follow along that process. That's a process. And once you have a process, the session starts to move. I've used this approach in workshops and executive sessions for years. And the pattern's consistent. When people understand the process, they behave differently. They don't jump ahead, they don't overtalk, they don't get stuck because they know what phase they're in. Here's the key idea: facilitation is phase control. If you don't control the phase of what people are talking about, then people mix everything together— ideas, reactions, decisions. And that creates confusion. Before your next session, design your agenda as a sequence. Think of it as start, expand, organize, narrow things down, and then decide. Make some decision. You don't have to use those exact words, but you do need that structure or something similar to it, because once you guide the process, You no longer rely on the group to figure it out, you make it happen. That's your job as the facilitator.
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