Getting started
Customize & deploy your own Catalyst forum.
1. Copy this doc (and set up each integration).
If you haven’t already, so you can customize your for your own team.
Copy this doc
Note: Don’t skip the Pack connection dialogs that pop up right after you copy the doc. They are the easiest path to setup the integrations. Here’s what they look like:
2. Define attendee roles.
Everybody attending a Catalyst meeting should have a defined role. This ensures opinions can be taken in context and the right people have permission to act quickly and decisively. These are ours, but feel free to fill in your own, or a standard one like
,
, etc.Role
Description
Driver 🧑✈️
Drivers play a dual function: both driving the discussion forward and, when necessary, making decisions. Effective meetings have a single person who feels a responsibility to make sure the meeting goes well.
Maker 🎨
The doers who are primarily responsible for executing against the decisions made during planning.
Braintrust 🧠
Originally inspired by Pixar’s braintrust model, a core group of stakeholders that must be consulted in the decision-making process. The Braintrust is there to provide valuable and timely input on topics chosen by the Driver and Makers. The goal of the Braintrust is to “add lift, not drag” to the rituals and decisions of the Makers.
Interested ✋
People who are not in any of the other role groups, but want to follow along with the decision-making process and stay informed.
There are no rows in this table
Note, if you change the names of your roles above, you should also rename the corresponding columns in .
See example:
3. Define decision stages.
Not every Catalyst is at the same Stage. At Coda, we named the five Stages of decisions so Drivers can be clear what stage their topic is at, and so reviewers can give appropriate feedback. Re-use ours, or adjust to your own.
Stage
Description
Ideate
The team is early, exploring, and/or uncertain of the problem and solutions.
Frame
The team has framed the proposal, discussion, or decision.
Propose
The team has a specific proposal they’d like feedback on.
Act
The team is executing & wants to communicate the plan or get final feedback.
Reflect
The team is reflecting on how the effort went, gathering learnings and future work.
There are no rows in this table
You can change the list above and it will automatically change the options in the Decision Stage column in :
See example:
4. Set up Catalyst Autopilot (verify integrations and automations are working).
One of the key characteristics of Coda’s Catalyst is that it is not a single standing forum, but rather a tool for scheduling many parallel decision forums. That way, rather than just a few decisions per week, we get through dozens. This doc automates all the mundane steps of managing those parallel forums with integrations and automations.
Setup and testing
Click to . You should see a row with your name added below. Click each button to test each integration (if it’s not setup yet, you may need to click once to setup, and then again to test). When the Status column is green, the doc is setup.
Start test
Name
Test GCal
Test Zoom
Test Slack
Status
Reset
There are no rows in this table
5. Roll out the catalyst to your team.
The Catalyst forum may feel new to your team, so it’s important to help them understand why it will 10x your decisions, and how to use it. Follow this checklist to ensure a smooth Catalyst rollout to your team.
Hold: Catalyst
Email template: Introducing Catalyst
Frequently asked questions
Do you have a decision log or some other way of tracking decisions?
At Coda, we use the as our decision log. Each Driver is asked to write a meeting recap after the meeting (you can see the meeting recap column if you pop open a topic row). Then, when we have questions about a topic or decision from six months ago, we can go find that Catalyst topic and read the meeting recap.
Whose account should calendar scheduling run through?
By default, it will run through the account of whoever is setting up this doc.
You can change it to another person, but need to make sure that person connects their Google Calendar, Slack, and Zoom accounts to this doc. See . At Coda, we created a separate synthetic account with a dedicated email that we call Catalyst Bot which handle these steps.
What if you want a Catalyst Forum without Autopilot?
The Catalyst forum works best with automated calendar scheduling and Slack reminders. But it will work without it as well. To disable, follow these steps:
Need help?
Reach out to a Coda expert by clicking the ❓ button in the bottom right corner of any doc. Or, if you’re interested in rolling this out to your team more broadly, .
Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.
This is not the way.
Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (
CtrlP
) instead.