Steering Committee Meeting Template
Four documents and three sheets that gate every agenda item on a costed recommendation and its named decider's confirmed attendance.
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Meeting Pack · Sennfield Advisory · Aldermarsh Health Network billing consolidation · Cycle 7
5 of 7 confirmed, 71% · Two gates applied before anything below is a vote
| Item | Decider | Ready | Attending | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| D-01 Billing platform standard | Priya Ashwell, CFO | Yes | Yes | On the table |
| D-04 Migration field scope | Desmond Oyelaran, IT Dir. | Yes | Yes | On the table |
| D-05 Lab-order workaround | Dr. Absalom Ricks, CMO | Yes | Yes | On the table |
| D-02 Go-live extension | Malcolm Petrakis, Sponsor | Yes | No | Deferred, 2nd time |
| D-06 Second implementation partner | Malcolm Petrakis, Sponsor | Yes | No | Deferred, 1st time |
| D-03 Interface change order | Naomi Kessler, Procurement | No, cost not firm | Not tabled |
Attendance and authority are two different numbers. Five of seven confirmed clears any ordinary headcount quorum with room to spare. It says nothing about whether the two people this cycle's stuck decisions actually need are among them, and neither is.
Ten weeks ago a delegate said yes on Malcolm's behalf to a $340,000 contingency figure. He reversed it in writing nine days later, once actually asked, at a carrying cost of $32,400 across three idled workstreams. This pack exists so that gets checked before the vote, not after.
Search steering committee meeting template today and the field has genuinely improved. Results converge on decision density over status theater: table decisions instead of updates, circulate a pre-read that already carries a recommendation, and keep a decision log with an owner and a status. That advice is sound, and most steering packs now follow it. What none of them check is whether the specific person a decision actually needs is confirmed to attend, as distinct from whether enough people showed up to hold the meeting at all.
This pack gates the queue twice before anything reaches a vote. First, readiness: a costed recommendation exists, not a rough number from outside the room. Second, the named decider, a role Bain's RAPID framework defines rather than "the committee," is confirmed attending, not represented by a delegate. On the worked cycle for Aldermarsh Health Network's billing consolidation, five of Sennfield Advisory's seven seats are confirmed, 71 percent, past any headcount quorum. Two of three items clearing the readiness gate still cannot close, both needing the one missing sponsor.
A generic quorum answers a different question than one decision's authority. Delaware's own quorum rule sets a majority of the whole board, with no reference to which director any matter requires. A delegate here said yes to a $340,000 contingency figure ten weeks ago; the sponsor reversed it in writing nine days later, and three workstreams sat idle at $3,600 a day, $32,400 spent learning attendance is not authority. Bain's RAPID framework states the fix: one named decider per decision. This queue's status comes from the weekly report, its dates from the workplan.
What's in the pack
Meeting Pack
The pre-read, circulated 48 hours out, carrying only items that cleared both gates and naming why anything else was held.
Decision Papers
One page per ready item: two or three costed options, a recommendation, and what does not happen if it is not decided today.
Steering Deck
The six-slide live version, each decided item linking to its full paper rather than restating the options on the screen.
Minutes
Every outcome recorded in the decider's own name, deferrals aged, and a standing note on any second consecutive deferral.
Decision Queue
Readiness, confirmed attendance and a consecutive-deferral count per item, carried cycle to cycle rather than reset each meeting.
Attendance and Quorum
Headcount quorum and decider-specific authority reported as two separate numbers, so a healthy percentage never implies every item is safe to decide.
Action Register
Owner, date and status on everything opened out of the meeting, including chasing the attendance a stuck decision needs.
How it works
- 1
Open in River, or take it blank
Edit with AI installs the pack as a private Space and starts gating your queue. Download gives you the Word documents and CSV sheets free, no account.
- 2
Send the queue and the roster
What is nominated this cycle, whatever recommendation work already exists behind each item, and who is confirmed to attend.
- 3
Run both gates
Readiness first: is there a costed recommendation. Then the named decider, checked against the confirmed attendance list, not a headcount.
- 4
Get the gated pack
Decided items get a full paper. Blocked items are marked deferred with the reason, and a second consecutive deferral is flagged by name.
Frequently asked questions
Is this steering committee template free?
Yes. Download gives the whole pack with no account and no email: four Word documents and three CSV sheets, opening natively in Word, Pages, Google Docs, Excel, Numbers and Sheets, with a PDF option on the documents via ?format=pdf. Edit with AI creates a free account and installs the same pack as a private Space, gating your own queue from what you send.
What if nobody can actually name a single decider?
That is itself a finding, not a reason to let the committee vote collectively. Bain's RAPID framework treats a group holding the decide role as the exception, one that needs an agreed method for resolving disagreement stated in advance. Name that method, or name one person, before the item is nominated again.
Does clearing quorum mean every item on the agenda is safe to decide?
No, and that gap is the reason this pack exists. Quorum is a headcount test on the whole meeting. A specific decision's authority is a test on one name. The worked example clears 71 percent attendance and still cannot close two of its three ready items.
How is this different from a weekly status report?
A status report tracks progress between meetings and is read alone. This pack is the meeting itself: the same open decisions, gated on readiness and attendance, then tabled, decided or deferred with the reason on the record.
A decision keeps deferring. When does it become a scope conversation instead?
Once the delay itself starts costing days rather than just patience, typically after a second consecutive deferral. At that point the schedule impact is real and belongs in a priced change order, not another cycle of the same request.
Is this the same as a decision-making workshop?
No. A decision workshop is a one-time session built to force a specific set of choices closed in a room. This pack runs the recurring cadence a multi-month engagement needs between those moments, cycle after cycle, on the same gated queue.
This programme has four workstreams feeding one steering committee. Does this pack track the dependencies between them?
No, and that split is deliberate. The multi-workstream programme pack reconciles what one workstream promises another against each side's own plan, before anything reaches a decision. This pack is what happens once that reconciliation surfaces something only the committee can actually decide.
Gate the queue before the meeting
Take the Word documents and CSV sheets blank, or send River this cycle's nominations and confirmed attendance and get the gated pack back.
Edit with AI