Executive briefing builder

Prepare a leader for the decision, agreement, or understanding they need from a particular meeting.

An executive briefing prepares a leader to inform, align, unblock, or negotiate. For a decision or negotiation, define an authorised fallback if the preferred outcome is unavailable. If the user wants a recurring customer performance review, use qbr-ebr-builder. If they want an internal account diagnosis, use account-brief-builder.

The ask. "Ask their COO to approve the 12-month expansion at the current discount. Fallback: a 60-day commercial hold and a named security-review start date. If neither, leave with a dated next meeting and no new concession."

Status memo. "Align on partnership value and explore opportunities to deepen the relationship across both organizations."

The leader should be able to state the meeting purpose and any decision sought in one sentence.

Inputs

Reuse supplied context first. If a missing company fact would change the result, check the relevant sections of .enablement/context.md when available. Preserve source dates and approval limits.

Ask only for the inputs that change the ask:

1. Meeting type, date, duration, and the decision or commitment sought
2. Who is in the room, and who can actually decide
3. Intended outcome; minimum acceptable outcome and walk-away for a negotiation
4. Any proposed asks, offers or concessions, and who can approve them
5. Distribution: internal only, or a customer-shareable extract

If the ask, attendee authority, commercial approval, or shareability boundary is unresolved, label the brief internal working material and block the affected external section. Do not invent metrics, logos, pricing, security claims, or authority.

Supporting material

Read references/executive-brief-template.md for ask types, fallback rules, and the one-page core. Skip it if the user already gave a structure and only wants talking points.

Procedure

1. Name the purpose. Inform, align, unblock, or negotiate. State what the audience needs to understand or decide. For a decision or negotiation, write the ask and any authorised fallback as sentences a leader can say. Done when the intended outcome is clear and any proposed commitment has an owner; an information briefing needs no invented concession.
2. Freeze the evidence. Reconcile dates, numbers, and commitments against named sources. Separate confirmed fact, interpretation, planning assumption, conflict, and unknown.
3. Map the room. Role, authority, confirmed priority, hypothesized concern, desired movement. Unverified stance stays unknown.
4. Cut the narrative to the purpose. Situation, material impact, evidence, and any recommendation. Keep the points the audience needs to understand or decide.
5. Pair any offer with authority. For proposed asks, offers, concessions or fallbacks, record conditions, approver, approval status and escalation trigger. Unapproved items stay internal. Skip the matrix when no commitments are proposed.
6. Time the conversation around the intended outcome. Opener, evidence, questions, concern handling and close. Include a decision check when a decision is needed. Each segment has an owner and a purpose.
7. Split the layers. Negotiation guardrails, stakeholder hypotheses, and fallback limits stay in the internal brief. Write a customer-shareable extract only when requested and approved.
8. Pre-flight. Names, figures, dates, claims, speaker ownership, open approvals, confidentiality labels. Surface contradictions.

Do not send the brief, share customer-facing material, or update an account record without explicit approval.

For a customer QBR or EBR use qbr-ebr-builder. For an internal account diagnosis use account-brief-builder.

What to return

Return the requested pre-read, talking points, or meeting plan. For a full briefing, include:

• One-page core: purpose, material evidence, principal risk, and any recommendation, ask, fallback or open approval the meeting needs
• Evidence notes for decision-critical facts
• Room map with confirmed authority vs hypothesized stance
• Timed meeting plan with speakers and relevant understanding or decision checkpoints
• Ask, offer, concession, and fallback matrix when commitments are proposed
• Internal-only vs customer-shareable labels
• Open questions and briefing owner

Move detailed evidence to an appendix when it crowds the core.

Quality bar

• A leader can state the briefing's purpose and, when needed, the ask and authorised fallback.
• Every material number, date, and commitment has a named source, or is marked unknown.
• Attendee facts stay distinct from hypotheses about their position.
• Asks and concessions stay inside confirmed authority.
• Internal strategy cannot be mistaken for customer-facing content.
• The leader can see which facts and approvals are still needed before the meeting.