The day · Page 32
9:00, doors open
For you only
The room is already set (the morning-of checklist in Chapter 10), so your job for these fifteen minutes is people, not logistics.
Stand near the door. Greet everyone by name. Point them at coffee before you point them at chairs. Let the room be a bit loud. You are listening for two things during the small talk: who arrived nervous, because "I'm not technical" arrives in the room before nine, and who arrived with an agenda, the person who already knows what should be built. You will handle both at 9:15 with the same two sentences, but it helps to know where they are sitting.
Music matters more than it looks like it should. An empty silent room reads as an exam hall. Keep it low enough to talk over, and keep it on: the moment before a person asks their first question of a stranger is easier with sound underneath it.
Do not start early, even if everyone is there at 9:10. The schedule on the wall is a promise, and 9:15 is its first test. Start when it says you start.
[SAY SOMETHING LIKE · the 9:15 opening, first two minutes] "Welcome, and thank you for giving this day a shot. Here is the whole deal. By five o'clock we will have working prototypes, reactions from real users, and a decision made by someone who can actually say yes. One day in, one decision out.
Two ground rules. First: today, everything is a draft. Everything you show, everything you say, everything you build. Nothing is wrong yet. It cannot be. There are no users in the room until half past three. Second: the tools do the typing. Nobody here needs to code, and by half past ten that sentence will make sense."
That "everything is a draft" line is not decoration, and the next chapter explains the research behind why it may be the most load-bearing sentence of your day.