Session Flow · 60-minute decision meeting with 15-30 minutes of reading

Amazon Narrative Memo Meeting (Study Hall)

Amazon replaced slide presentations in senior meetings with written narrative memos that the attendees read silently at the start of the meeting. Writing forces clearer thinking, and reading in the room means everyone starts the discussion with the same full context.

When to use Amazon Narrative Memo Meeting (Study Hall)

Decision meetings, strategy reviews and proposals where slides hide weak reasoning or attendees never read pre-reads.

How Amazon Narrative Memo Meeting (Study Hall) works

For a decision or review meeting, put the memo writing in the preparation, then open the agenda with a 15-30 minute silent reading block before discussion and decision blocks.

Phases of Amazon Narrative Memo Meeting (Study Hall)

  1. Write the Narrative: Before the meeting, the owner writes a memo of up to six pages in full prose, revised with colleagues over days, not slides.
  2. Silent Reading: The meeting opens with everyone reading the memo in silence, making notes in the margins.
  3. Discussion: The group questions and debates the memo, often page by page, with the author answering.
  4. Decision & Next Steps: The decision-maker decides or names what is still missing, and owners take the actions away.

Key principles

  • Prose instead of bullet points
  • Read together at the start, not beforehand
  • Memo quality takes time and revision
  • Discussion starts from shared context
  • Memos belong to the team, not one author

Best for

  • Decision meetings
  • Strategy and planning reviews
  • Proposal approvals
  • Board and leadership meetings

Considerations

  • A good memo can take a week or more to write
  • Silent reading can feel awkward the first times; explain why
  • Less suited to quick operational updates
  • Six pages is a ceiling, not a target

Attribution & sources

Practised at Amazon under Jeff Bezos; described in his 2017 letter to shareholders

Primary source

Design a session with Amazon Narrative Memo Meeting (Study Hall)

METODIC builds a complete Amazon Narrative Memo Meeting (Study Hall)-based session — methods, timing, worksheets, and facilitator guides — in minutes.

Try METODIC free