Agenda Ice-Breaker
Before the AI update: each person names one dataset they would not want a model to see yet, and why. We will treat that list as the actual readiness backlog.
Retrospective Prompt
Retro: which AI pilot has been a pilot long enough that calling it a pilot is now the main thing protecting it from being evaluated?
Retrospective Prompt
Retro: what did we promise the board about being AI-ready, and how many of our datasets have since been profiled to find out if that was true?
One-Liner
Opener: which dataset have we called AI-ready, describing it confidently while no one has actually profiled it?
One-Liner
What part of the AI roadmap is secretly a data-quality program wearing sunglasses?
Shiny Object Bingo
AI-ready: a data estate that has recently been described by someone who has not profiled it. Mark your card when it is said in a sentence that also contains the word "just."
Shiny Object Bingo
Mark your card when 'human-in-the-loop' is said about a step where the human gets two seconds and a default of yes.
Definition Court
The phrase 'the agent will handle it' takes the stand. Name the decision it is handling, and the human who is accountable when it handles it wrong.
Governance Tarot
You drew The AI-Readiness Certificate. It was issued by someone who never profiled the data — which a model has now met, and filed a complaint.
Vendor Demo Debrief
Debrief: the demo showed the model answering perfectly. Name the question it was not asked, and whether our own data would survive being asked it.
Dashboard Weather
Visibility: brilliant, board-facing. Ownership: nineteen people, none accountable. Forecast: pending a data-quality program traveling incognito.
Agenda Ice-Breaker
Opener: name the one decision that would change if this analysis flipped its answer. If there isn't one, it goes to the bottom of the agenda.
Agenda Ice-Breaker
Before we trust this number: if it's wrong, whose decision breaks and what does that cost? If no one can say, we're decorating.
Shiny Object Bingo
Mark it: 'business value' invoked with no number, no baseline, and no one in the room who owns the P&L it touches.
Shiny Object Bingo
Data-driven: describes a decision that was made first and is now being escorted to the data for a character reference. Mark your card when the chart appears after the conclusion.
Agenda Ice-Breaker
Before we model anything further: if this number is wrong by a lot, who feels it first, and have we ever asked them?
Agenda Ice-Breaker
Gut-check: for the feature we are most excited to build, can anyone name the specific person who asked for it, or did it ask for itself?
Agenda Ice-Breaker
Gut-check before we commit: if a real customer watched this entire initiative, at what point would they start to care?
One-Liner
How long does a new hire take to learn which of our four 'revenue' numbers to trust — and who taught the last one that?
Retrospective Prompt
Retro: for last quarter's big initiative, did we define success before we started, or did we select the metric that happened to look good afterward?
Governance Tarot
You drew The Analysis Nobody Asked Why About. It's technically correct, beautifully formatted, and answers a question no decision depends on.
Agenda Ice-Breaker
Opener: before we trust the green, let us agree on one thing it does not mean. Whatever we cannot rule out is the first item we put on the board.
Agenda Ice-Breaker
Before we add another dashboard: which existing dashboard refreshes every five minutes for an audience we have never actually confirmed exists?
Shiny Object Bingo
Actionable insight: a finding admired in the meeting and orphaned by the afternoon. Mark your card when it is praised with no owner, action, or date.
One-Liner
Opener: which dashboard on our wall is green mainly because no one has agreed what red would mean?
Dashboard Weather
Forecast: dense fog at the drill-down level. Top-line clear and sunny; visibility drops to zero the moment anyone clicks.
Dashboard Weather
Seasonal note: a strong high-pressure system arrives every quarter-end, turning amber tiles green within hours of the review.
Definition Court
This KPI is charged with looking important while changing no behavior. The court asks: name one decision that would actually differ if it moved ten percent.
Dashboard Weather
Today's forecast: dashboards fully green, last opened never. A warm front of confidence moving in from a chart no one reads.
Agenda Ice-Breaker
Before we start, everyone name one metric that looks precise on the slide until a customer asks what it actually counts.
Agenda Ice-Breaker
Before we start: name one dashboard number you genuinely trust, and one you trust only because this meeting is short.
Retrospective Prompt
Retro prompt: name one metric we watched all sprint. Now name one decision it changed. If those don't connect, why did we watch it?
Governance Tarot
You drew The Eternally Green Dashboard. Every metric is healthy — except the one that would require someone to do something, which isn't on it.
Dashboard Weather
Visibility: clear. Ownership: fog rolling in from the org chart. Chance of action: low until a VP asks why everything's green.
One-Liner
Quick one: which internal tool became a data product the week we needed something impressive to put on a slide, and what changed besides the name?
Definition Court
The term data product is summoned. Evidence shows a landing page, a logo, and a roadmap, but no users, owner, or SLA. Is there a product present, or only its branding?
One-Liner
Quick opener: what have we recently called a data product that has no users, no owner, no SLA, and no feedback loop?
Governance Tarot
You drew The Data Product With No Users. It has a name, a logo, and a quarterly review. It does not have anyone who depends on it.
Dashboard Weather
Visibility: a launch page and a logo. Demand: no users on radar. Advisory: a product with no consumers, SLA, or feedback loop is a dataset in a nice jacket.
Agenda Ice-Breaker
Before we start, name a metric that looks precise until a customer asks what it means. Then we define the most confidently misunderstood one.
Shiny Object Bingo
North star metric: a single number everyone steers toward and no two teams compute the same way. Mark your card when the north star is named before its definition is.
Shiny Object Bingo
Self-serve data access: anyone may query numbers no one agreed to define. Mark your card when two dashboards reach opposite conclusions by lunch.
Definition Court
The term customer is charged with impersonating a shared definition across CRM, billing, support, and several confident assumptions. How does it plead?
Agenda Ice-Breaker
Before we start: everyone write down what 'platform' means here, fold it, and we'll see if we're in the same meeting.
Definition Court
Definition Court calls 'data product.' Does it have an owner, an SLA, and a consumer who'd complain if it broke? If not, it's a table.
Definition Court
Definition Court is now in session. The term 'real-time' is charged with meaning 'within a day.' How does the term plead?
One-Liner
We have a single source of truth. We also have four of them, and they disagree before lunch.
One-Liner
Which wiki page do we all cite, none of us have read since the author moved teams, and all of us assume is still current?
Definition Court
The term revenue is accused of giving conflicting testimony to finance, sales, and the board deck. Before we rule, which version is under oath today?
Governance Tarot
You drew The Glossary Maintained By One Analyst. The shared definition lives in one person's memory — who is, this week, on vacation.
Governance Tarot
You drew The Customer Who Means Four Things. CRM, billing, support, and the slide each define it differently — and all four are confident.
One-Liner
What is one term on today's agenda that would benefit from adult supervision?
One-Liner
Quick check-in before the agenda assumes it away: which key business term are we all pretending is already defined?
Dashboard Weather
Visibility: the word is used constantly. Clarity: zero, with patches of strong opinion. Forecast: no front of agreement approaching.
One-Liner
Opener: are we aligned, or have we merely agreed on the word alignment while privately picturing different outcomes?
Shiny Object Bingo
Strategic enabler: a budget line that enables strategy from a safe distance and resists being measured. Mark your card when it appears on a slide with no owner and no number.
Definition Court
The phrase data-driven is on trial. The defense calls no witnesses, because no decision this quarter can confirm it was present. Findings?
One-Liner
Opener: which decision today is being made at an altitude high enough that the data on the ground is no longer visible?
Governance Tarot
You drew The Roadmap With No Prerequisites. Every quarter holds an outcome and none hold the boring work that produces it.
Dashboard Weather
Visibility: panoramic, from cruising altitude. Ground conditions: unknown to the room. Chance of action: high in new initiatives, low in finished ones.
Agenda Ice-Breaker
To open: name a decision we are certain we made last quarter. Now find where it is written down. The search time is today's agenda.
Shiny Object Bingo
Governance framework: boxes that govern data once someone agrees to stand in one. Mark your card when it ships and the boxes stay politely empty.
Agenda Ice-Breaker
Before we open the council: of the items on today's agenda, how many are decisions we will own, and how many are updates we will nod at?
Agenda Ice-Breaker
Before we begin: we have quorum, but do we have, in this room right now, every person who can actually say yes to what we are about to discuss?
One-Liner
If our governance policy had to name one accountable person, which paragraph would quietly resign first?
Governance Tarot
You drew The Council That Achieved Alignment. Everyone agreed, warmly and at length, without specifying on what.
Governance Tarot
You draw The Orphan: a flawless pipeline with no name attached. Reversed, it means three teams each assume it's the other's.
One-Liner
Our data governance program is a Slack channel with 200 members and one person who answers.
Agenda Ice-Breaker
Quick round: name a dataset you depend on daily, then name its owner. Silence counts as an answer.
Agenda Ice-Breaker
Round-table: name one responsibility currently assigned to the business, an entity that has never once attended this meeting or answered a page.
Agenda Ice-Breaker
To open: each person points to one item on today's agenda that affects data we cannot name an owner for. The first item with no name becomes the first thing we assign.
Shiny Object Bingo
Data mesh: the org chart, redrawn as an architecture diagram, with the ownership gaps relabeled as domains. Mark your card when a domain is named but its owner is not.
Vendor Demo Debrief
Name the feature that seemed to solve ownership by hiding it behind a configuration screen no one will own either.
One-Liner
Opener: look at the responsibility chart for this initiative. If everyone is consulted and informed, who exactly is accountable, or did we distribute that until it vanished?
Retrospective Prompt
Retro: name one system that was 'handed off' this year. Now point to the specific team standing at the receiving end of the arrow.
Agenda Ice-Breaker
Round-table: name one dataset whose steward was chosen not by a decision, but by being the last person to look away when ownership came up.
Governance Tarot
You drew The Abstract Owner. Accountability has been assigned to "the business" — and no individual has yet been harmed by responsibility.
Agenda Ice-Breaker
To open the evaluation: name the one term in this purchase that we have not defined. Until it has a definition, the platform is being asked to mean it for us.
Shiny Object Bingo
Mark your card: someone says 'fully managed' about a thing that will require two of your engineers full-time.
Vendor Demo Debrief
Which part of that demo would work perfectly if we were a different company with cleaner data and fewer unresolved arguments?
Retrospective Prompt
Looking back at the migration: which problem did the new platform not create, but simply reveal had no owner all along?
One-Liner
Which platform feature are we quietly hoping will make a business decision for us, so that no human has to own being wrong?
One-Liner
Opener: which disagreement between two teams are we hoping a configuration setting will resolve, so we never have to hold the conversation?
Retrospective Prompt
Retro: we promised self-serve analytics. Count the requests still routed through one person's inbox, then we'll discuss the word 'self.'
Governance Tarot
You drew The Platform That Will Decide For Us. It was bought to make a decision no human wanted to own. The decision is still there — now with a license fee.
Governance Tarot
You draw The Hungry Platform: it promised to do everything, so now every team's roadmap feeds it and none of them ship.
Vendor Demo Debrief
Debrief: 'migration is easy' was said by the only person in the room who will not be doing the migration.
Dashboard Weather
Visibility: clear in the demo, foggy in production. Advisory: the lights are about to come on in rooms no one has entered since 2019.
Agenda Ice-Breaker
Opener: this initiative has been renamed three times. Show of hands for who can name what it actually delivers.
Agenda Ice-Breaker
To start the retro: name something we automated this quarter that was still conceptually undefined, built faster than we understood it.
Retrospective Prompt
What did we automate this quarter that was still conceptually undefined when we automated it?
Shiny Object Bingo
Quick win: a deliverable promised before anyone defined the word it depends on. Mark your card when the quick win is rescheduled into the same quarter as the slow loss.
Shiny Object Bingo
Mark it: 'synergy across workstreams,' said in a room where two of the workstreams have never spoken.
One-Liner
Name one query you are fairly sure is still running right now. Now name who would notice the bill before the quarter does.
Retrospective Prompt
Retro prompt: which spreadsheet is currently load-bearing for a real business process, and how long have we called replacing it a quick win?
Retrospective Prompt
Retro: which step in our pipeline does everyone perform faithfully and no one can explain, and what would happen if we simply stopped?
Retrospective Prompt
Retro: what phrase did we say most this sprint, and did saying it ever change what we did?
One-Liner
Which process do we describe as self-service mainly because the word unsupported felt negative in the planning meeting?
Governance Tarot
You drew The Self-Service Mirage. It was labeled self-service because the word "unsupported" tested poorly.
Dashboard Weather
Visibility: the runbook says automated. Reality: three people running it by hand at month-end. Advisory: those manual steps are load-bearing.
Definition Court
The term active user takes the stand. To product, logged-in; to finance, billed; to marketing, opened an email. One definition before sentencing?
Shiny Object Bingo
Single source of truth: the fourth one of these we have built this year. Mark your card when two of them are open on the same screen disagreeing about revenue.
One-Liner
What phrase in this deck is doing the most unpaid work?
Retrospective Prompt
Confession: which headline metric have we reported so many times that recalculating it from scratch now feels rude rather than routine?
Retrospective Prompt
Confession round for the semantic layer: which metric exists twice under one name because merging the two definitions required a meeting nobody wanted to schedule?
Governance Tarot
You drew The Three Semantic Layers. Each team built its own version of the truth, so "revenue" now reconciles to itself in exactly zero of them.
One-Liner
We were declared AI-ready Tuesday. By Wednesday no one could say which data, for which question, at what quality.
Shiny Object Bingo
Future-proof: the decade's third architecture to wear the label. Mark your card when its predecessor was retired for insufficient future-proofing.
Shiny Object Bingo
Modernize the stack: trade documented tools for ones we'll document later. Mark your card when undocumented logic resurfaces mid-migration.
Shiny Object Bingo
Paradigm shift: the same reorganization, announced with more conviction. Mark your card when the shift requires no change to who is accountable for what.
One-Liner
Quick check before the budget ask: does modernize here mean measurably better for someone, or simply newer than what we have?
One-Liner
Opener: which item reached our roadmap because a real problem demanded it, and which arrived because someone attended a compelling keynote last month?
Agenda Ice-Breaker
Before the agenda: what new technology are we hoping to adopt this quarter specifically so we can skip a problem we already know how to solve?
Governance Tarot
You draw The Eternal Pilot: forever in pilot, never in production, generously funded by the word 'promising.'
Vendor Demo Debrief
Debrief: every missing feature was 'on the roadmap.' The roadmap has no dates, no owner, and excellent lighting.
Vendor Demo Debrief
Debrief tally: the phrase 'out of the box' appeared nine times. The box, as ever, was not in the room.
One-Liner
Which definition are we currently maintaining with vibes, Slack history, and one analyst everyone depends on emotionally?
Agenda Ice-Breaker
Round-table: name one stewardship role that exists on an org chart, has a title and a mandate, and has exactly zero hours allocated to it this quarter.
One-Liner
Quick check: for our most critical dataset, what is the plan when its one real owner takes two weeks off, and is that plan a plan or a hope?
Governance Tarot
You drew The Steward Without Authority. They're accountable for data they cannot change — and cc'd on the incident they predicted in March.
Dashboard Weather
Visibility: deceptively bright. Ownership: scattered, chance of "the upstream team." Advisory: the green you see is yesterday's data in good lighting.
Dashboard Weather
Visibility: the steward sees everything. Authority: none. Forecast: responsibility runs high; the power to use it is not in today's outlook.
Definition Court
Data mesh is charged with mistaken identity: witnesses describe it as a new team, a new tool, and a reorg of the same backlog. The court asks the defendant to define itself.
Agenda Ice-Breaker
Quick check before we debate the model: when we disagree on a category today, who in this room actually has the authority to decide, and do they know it?
Agenda Ice-Breaker
Warmup: of the work ahead in this taxonomy effort, how much is genuine classification, and how much is rearranging folders so the absence of a strategy feels addressed?
Agenda Ice-Breaker
Warmup for the taxonomy workshop: this is attempt number what, and which earlier version are we about to rediscover by accident?
Dashboard Weather
Visibility: a beautiful tree of categories. Maintenance: a backlog older than the project. Advisory: the taxonomy now governs the people who govern it.
Agenda Ice-Breaker
Before we debrief: name a prerequisite the demo treated as a customer-success milestone, i.e. something we still have to build.
Vendor Demo Debrief
Name one feature from that demo that would work beautifully in an organization that had already solved the hard part.
Vendor Demo Debrief
What prerequisite did that demo quietly treat as a customer success milestone we would reach later, on our own, somehow?
Vendor Demo Debrief
Debrief: which integration did the demo describe as simple, and which of our systems is about to disagree, loudly, in production?
Vendor Demo Debrief
Debrief: before we greenlight the proof of concept, can anyone state the one outcome that would let us call it a failure? If not, it cannot succeed either.
Dashboard Weather
Renewal forecast: a contract auto-renews next month under clear skies. Nobody has opened the tool since onboarding. Advisory: the invoice is the only review currently scheduled.
Dashboard Weather
Visibility: dazzling. Ownership: offscreen. Chance of action: high — in a cleaner company than ours.
