Board Update Call: The Numbers and Decisions to Have Ready
Updated 2026-11-01 · 2 min read
This rail is for a board meeting over video, where you need a decision and a few approvals inside the hour. Directors have usually read the deck, so they'll ask about whatever's off plan. The cards keep the figures and the decision you need one glance away.
The rail
Agenda and time
- We have [60] minutes, ending at [time]
- Plan: the numbers, the decision, then open time
- Any topic you need covered today?
- First: approve the last meeting's minutes
Since the last meeting
- Goals set last time: [goals]
- Done: [goal]. Missed: [goal], because [reason]
Revenue, burn and runway
- Revenue: [amount], against a plan of [amount]
- Burn: [amount] a month. Runway: [months] months
- Cash in the bank: [amount]
Product and customers
- Shipped since last time: [feature]
- What customers said or did: [signal]
Team and hiring
- Headcount: [number], plan [number]
- Open roles: [roles]
- People issues to raise: [issue]
The decision we need
- Decision: [decision], needed by [date]
- Options: [option a] or [option b]
- What I'd do: [recommendation], and why
Biggest risks
- Biggest risk this quarter: [risk]
- What we're doing about it: [plan]
What needs a vote
- To approve today: [items]
- Any questions before the vote?
Next meeting
- Recap each decision and who owns it
- Next meeting: [date]
- Follow-up material by [day]
How to use this rail
- Copy the rail. Press Copy this rail. It copies every card as text, with a heading on each one.
- Paste it into a new note in GlideRail. GlideRail spots the headings and offers to split the text. Press Split into sections: the rail's name at the top becomes the note's name, and each card heading becomes its own card.
- Fill in the brackets. Use the numbers from the board deck, to the decimal, so what you say matches what they read.
- Open Cue Mode. Put the window near your camera, then move between cards with ⌘[ and ⌘] (they work from any app while Cue Mode is open) or a two-finger swipe.
- Turn on Live Rail, if you like. On an Apple Silicon Mac it listens to the call and offers the card whose heading matches what was just said, so when a director asks about the biggest risks, it can offer that card. One click opens it, and it never changes cards on its own.
If you share the board deck, turn on Invisible first (Pro), and the share leaves the cards out. On Zoom, first set Settings, Share Screen, Advanced, Screen capture mode to "Advanced capture with window filtering" (the Zoom guide shows it). Cue Mode and Live Rail are Pro too, and every download comes with 7 days of Pro, free, with no card needed.
Make it yours
If the decision is the reason for the meeting, move its card up, so it gets the time before the hour runs out. Add a card for each item to approve when there's more than one. Copy the rail again for each meeting, so last quarter's numbers stay with last quarter.