Adrian Peryer
How I think about meeting design
Most meetings are designed by default. Two choices shape everyone's experience of a session, and almost no one makes them on purpose:
Do you want people to be passive, or active? Do you want them to be consumers, or producers?
These aren't small questions — they determine what everyone in the room actually experiences. Yet the defaults are so deeply ingrained that people don't notice they're choosing at all. They reach for the familiar format, starting with slides, presenters, an audience in listen mode, simply because it's comfortable and it suits the people at the front. I believe these should be conscious design choices, not habits. That single shift, from default to deliberate, is the foundation of how I design co-creative, collaborative meetings. I first drew this up as a framework years ago, with my colleague Sarah Greer, after reflecting on some less-than-optimal executive briefing sessions involving the CEO of a very large technology company. It's been central to my method ever since. It helps anyone think through what kind of experience they want people to have, and how to build a session around it.
Why it's harder than it looks
The framework is necessary, but it isn't sufficient. I think the real reason most meetings stay in passive, consuming mode is that designing the alternative demands a rare combination of skills. Perhaps unconsciously people feel they lack these, so quietly avoid the design work. There are three specific skills:
Framework design — structuring the conversation around the right questions. This is genuinely elusive. I once spent several months trying to build a methodology for it, and stopped when I realised it isn't a theoretical exercise. The frameworks that matter get built because a specific session needs them. They come out of a creative process that is always a little uncomfortable.
Live capturing — in words and visuals, in real time. This is teachable, and with practice people get good at it. But it requires a kind of double expertise: it's not enough to record the acronyms, you have to know what goes where, what connects to what. That takes the eye of an artist and an understanding of the context. Without the context, you miss the connections and missing the connections is missing the point.
Facilitation — clarifying and summarising, building alignment, holding the tensions and trade-offs in the room. The best facilitators I work with are often the technology leaders themselves: true technical maestros, deep experts who also know how to lead a room. When they facilitate, they're double experts — they know the craft and they know the subject. I'm always happy to co-facilitate and let them lead.
That double-expertise requirement (fluency in both the facilitation and the domain) is the hardest part of this work, and an ongoing challenge I'm still working on solving.
From practice to tools others can use
I don't only practise this craft; I work to make it usable by others. As I work with clients, my colleagues and I constantly reflect on what we've learned and innovated. When a new framework or technique proves itself, we ask two questions: would this benefit everyone, and can we describe it simply enough to be quick to learn and easy to use? When the answer to both is yes, we build it — prototype, test it on ourselves, release it to a small group, then make it available more widely. Some tools are ready in four weeks; others take more than a year. The aim is always the same: to put what works into other people's hands.
Where the method comes from
My approach was shaped long before I entered the technology sector. I took a broad degree in social ethics, years of philosophy, sociology, psychology, and the study of different cultures and religions, and then trained in counselling while earning a living doing group work with young people. That led to a postgraduate degree in social work and a placement with a family therapy team, where I learned principles I still use today.
But instead of families, I found myself working with teams (including a year helping a professional sports team win promotion) then with organisations, and then with larger systems. For the past 25 years I've worked alongside some of the best people in the technology sector. Without that education, I couldn't do what I do.
The learning never stops, and it's both a joy and a privilege. I spend my time either practising this craft, innovating and transferring these tools so others can use them, or keeping pace with a sector that never stands still.