Protocol
Carry the thread across recurring meetings
A recurring meeting should inherit state, not amnesia.
When it fits
- A recurring project meeting repeatedly spends time reconstructing what happened last time and what must happen next.
When to avoid it
- Design research supports the temporal-work framing; this specific compact protocol has not been independently validated as an intervention.
Why it matters
Before the next meeting, connect three time horizons: what changed since the previous meeting, which open decisions or actions remain, and what future event or milestone the next discussion must prepare for. Use AI summaries only as drafts tied to source notes or artifacts. The useful output is continuity of work, not a longer meeting memory.
Steps
- Participants can enter the meeting from the current project state without reconstructing the full history verbally.
An example
A weekly migration meeting begins from changed error counts, unresolved mappings and the next cutover milestone rather than replaying the previous call.
Check your result
Participants can enter the meeting from the current project state without reconstructing the full history verbally.
Keep this limit in mind
- Design research supports the temporal-work framing; this specific compact protocol has not been independently validated as an intervention.
Evidence and sources
DIS 2025 design research frames recurring knowledge work as temporal work that depends on both retrospection across prior meetings and prospection toward future work.
The framework organizes design thinking; it is not a controlled trial establishing a productivity effect.
Designing Interfaces that Support Temporal Work Across Meetings with Generative AI · Abstract and framework