Before you press Publish

Participants can name the action that must wait, choose a reviewer, identify the evidence to check and record a decision about one specific version of an AI-assisted draft.

Put the event brief, registration-page card and draft on a slide or separate sheets. Keep the three change cards hidden until the testing round. Give each group a blank sheet with these six headings: Action waiting; Reviewer; Evidence; Decision; Exact version; Next action. Mark two areas on the table or shared document: Held and Ready. Start every draft in Held. Only the facilitator can move it to Ready, after seeing an acceptance record attached to that exact text.

Use the provided workshop details throughout. Ask participants to leave their own workplace records and personal information out of the exercise. For an online session, put each group in a breakout room with its own document. Offer the cards as readable text as well as on screen, and allow people to contribute by writing or speaking.

• Workshop: Make a project update people can use.
• Date: 20 November 2026, 14:00 to 15:00.
• Room: Willow Room.
• Places: 20.
• Entrance: step-free access through the east door.
• Registration page: /events/update-workshop.
• Noor is the event owner and has confirmed these details. Elliott is the communications coordinator who can release the announcement.

The preview for /events/update-workshop reads: Make a project update people can use. 20 November 2026, 14:00 to 15:00. Willow Room. 20 places. Step-free access through the east door.

Treat this card as the page preview for the exercise. Participants do not need to visit a website.

“Join us for Make a project update people can use on 20 November 2026, from 14:00 to 15:00 in the Cedar Room. We have 30 places. There is step-free access through the east door. Register at /events/update-workshop.”

Read Draft V1 aloud. Ask, “If someone says this has been reviewed, what exactly is allowed to happen next?” Take two answers.

Set the task: the announcement can be drafted and edited, but it must stay unpublished until its reviewer accepts the exact version that will be used. Nobody sends or publishes anything during the activity.

Divide participants into groups of three or four. One person manages the draft, one plays Elliott, and one plays Noor. A fourth person observes the decision record. If a pair remains, one person plays both the draft manager and Noor.

Introduce the five questions in the CLEAR test:

• Consequence held: What action must wait? Here, it is publishing the announcement.
• Listed reviewer: Who can decide? Elliott reviews the copy; Noor resolves questions about the event.
• Evidence checked: What must the reviewer compare? The event brief, the registration-page card and the exact draft.
• Allowed outcomes: Can the reviewer accept, ask for revision, reject the draft or refer an unresolved question to Noor?
• Record and recovery: Which version did the decision cover, why, and what happens if that version changes?

Ask groups to write their acceptance rule before editing: every event detail must agree with the two source cards, and the copy must add no unsupported claims.

Give groups two minutes to compare Draft V1 with the source cards. The reviewer must point to the evidence for each requested change. “It looks wrong” is not enough.

The draft manager makes the changes and labels the result V2. The reviewer checks V2 against both source cards and records one of four decisions: accept, revise, reject or escalate. The decision record must identify the exact text or a saved version, not merely say “latest draft.”

Ask the event owner to try this sentence: “We are running late. Can we just use V1?” The group decides what remains held and who is allowed to change that decision.

One workable record is:

Action waiting: publish the announcement. Reviewer: Elliott. Evidence: event brief and registration-page card. Decision: revise because the room and capacity disagree with the sources. Exact version: V1, the starting card above. Next action: change Cedar to Willow and 30 to 20, label the result V2 and return it for review.

After those two corrections and a fresh check, Elliott writes a new acceptance record: Decision: accept. Exact version: V2, with the full text attached. Evidence: both source cards checked. Next action: ask the facilitator to move this V2 to Ready. Keep the reviewer and action-waiting fields too. The earlier request to revise V1 is not an acceptance of V2.

Give the groups these cards one at a time. Each card starts from the corrected and accepted V2, independently of the other cards. Allow about two minutes per card, with a short comparison at the end.

Card A: A private note arrives. The draft manager is about to paste a new input containing [private participant note] into the drafting tool. What should happen before that input is used?

Card B: The sources disagree. The event brief still says 20 November. A replacement registration-page card says 21 November. Which date can the group publish?

Card C: The approved copy changes. After Elliott accepts V2, the draft manager changes the room to Cedar and labels the result V3. Can the V2 approval release V3?

For every card, ask for three things: what stops, who decides next, and what the record says. Rotate the first speaker so everyone makes a decision.

Ask everyone to finish this sentence in writing: “Before this announcement can move to Ready, I need to see…” Take two brief responses.

Ask the whole group: “What stopped the changed V3 from moving to Ready under V2’s acceptance?” Connect the visible Held area, the version-specific record and the facilitator’s release check. In a real workflow, the equivalent control must prevent the action until its conditions are met.

If more time is available, discuss what Elliott could decide from the evidence, what needed Noor, and what would happen if someone could bypass the hold.

V1: Request revision. The two source cards agree on Willow Room and 20 places. Correct those details, then review V2. The source supports the step-free east entrance; it does not support broader accessibility promises.

Card A: Stop before using the new input. Reject that input for the exercise and return to the provided event brief. The bracketed marker is enough to practise the decision; nobody supplies an actual private note.

Card B: Hold publication and escalate the conflict to Noor. Choosing the more recent-looking card or the preferred date does not establish which date is correct. Update the source cards after the event owner resolves the question, then review the resulting draft.

Card C: Keep V3 unpublished. Acceptance applies to V2. Return V3 to review; the room conflicts with the sources, so request revision. A previously recorded acceptance does not travel automatically to changed text.

Accept different wording when the group preserves the hold, names a suitable decision owner and gives an evidence-based next action.

Adapted by Keith Staggers from his Human Approval Gate, Version 1.0.2. This version adds the complete event cards, practice roles, a timed sequence and worked decisions so a facilitator can run it directly from this entry.

The free guide and worksheet provide more space to design a review for a team's own workflow. The original kit is available under CC BY 4.0.