The facilitator
A proactive actor with three interaction modes, not a chat box.A good facilitator interrupts. It keeps the session moving to time, it makes the group read the board aloud to hear where it breaks, and it refuses to let a phase close while steps are missing. None of that fits in a chat panel waiting to be asked, so the facilitator has three modes with three different shapes: it sits in the margin, it takes the floor, or it stands in the doorway.
Findings sit in the gutter. Work is never interrupted.
Nothing connects the CAB decision to Scheduling.
Facilitator queue
- MISSING ACTOR 0
- GRAIN TOO COARSE 0
- SKIPPED STEP 1
- UNNAMED ARROW 15
- UNDEFINED TERM 2
Marks live in the gutter, never on the sticky. Nothing pops, nothing moves, nothing blocks. Steel is a note; red is overdue.
21 open items, past 10. Some of these only land when somebody reads the board aloud and trips over one.
- Ambient — the margin Default. Findings accumulate in the gutter and the queue while people work. Never interrupts, never moves a sticky, never speaks unprompted in chat.
- Read-out — the floor Modal by design. The board becomes a script; the group hears where the model breaks. Entered on demand, or offered when the queue passes ten items.
- Gate — the doorway The only blocking mode, and only at a boundary: closing a phase, exporting, or ending the session. Overriding is always possible and always recorded.
Read-out, alone
- DOESN'T READ TWO READERS
Then budget reserved.
Read it twice. Nothing says how the change reaches Scheduling.
- DOESN'T READ MAYA
Then risk rating assigned.
Solo stumbles are drafts. They collect here as dashed marks and are contributed to the board in one action — the same accept step as a facilitator proposal.
- Presenter-locked. One reader, one cursor, the whole room dimmed to the active span. Stumbles are credited to the reader and land on the board immediately.
- Solo. Per-person, unannounced, and non-destructive. Nobody else’s board dims and nobody sees the run until it is offered.
- Solo stumbles are drafts. They collect in the reader’s own tray as dashed marks, and are contributed to the board in one action — the same accept step as a facilitator proposal.
- Two solo runs are evidence. Where two people stumbled at the same span before the session, the facilitator opens with it. Agreement about where the model breaks is worth more than either run.
Approval has run 11 minutes long and Execution has not started. Two choices: park the CAB question and move on, or take the time from Wrap.
- Timeboxes are agreed at the start and shown as one strip. Over-run is hatched, never hidden.
- Every nudge carries choices, not just a warning. The facilitator proposes the trade-off; a person makes it.
- Nothing is ever auto-closed. A phase moves when someone says so, and the reason lands in the session record.