Supercharging decision making: 14 ways to Dory / Pulse

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Just created a fun rituals doc! It’s a redux of an old classic Coda ritual: Dory / Pulse.

For those less familiar: Dory / Pulse is a ritual that supercharges decision-making by equalizing voices and removing groupthink. It’s also the one most copied/adapted and the one I get asked about most.

I interviewed leaders at many companies (Zapier, Glean, Doordash, Okta, Coinbase, etc) and compiled the 14 best variations of this powerful duo into my latest post at Supercharging decision making: 14 ways to Dory / Pulse.

Quick summary of what’s in the post…

7 variations of Dory:

  1. Classic Dory: “What’s most important to discuss?”
  2. Unbiased Dory: “Ignoring authors and votes, what’s most important to discuss?”
  3. Anonymous Dory: “What do you really want to know (but don’t want to say out loud)?”
  4. Max Choice Dory: “You can only vote for 2 of these!”
  5. Rank the Category Dory: “Lots of interest in questions on topic X, let’s start there.”
  6. Sentence Starter Dory: “I like, I wish…”
  7. Kitchen Sink Dory: My fav Dory rituals together, including AI.

7 variations of Pulse:

  1. Classic Pulse: “Where do you really stand?”
  2. Role-centric Pulse: “Where does each part of the decision-making team stand?”
  3. Conviction, Disagree, and Commit Pulse: “Do you agree, and do you commit?”
  4. Read Each Other’s Pulse: “Did you hear each other’s feedback?”
  5. Pick an Option Pulse: “Do you prefer {option 1, option 2, or option 3}?”
  6. Ranked Choice Pulse: “Rank the options!”
  7. $100 Voting Pulse: “You have $100 to spend…”

From the Coda community — would love feedback, but also other variations you either have or wish you had? Thoughts?

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