Decision. Use a weighted decision matrix with four axes — Audience fit · Series continuity · Speaker readiness · Demo viability — and lock the weights before scoring candidates. If two candidates tie, pick the one with the runnable live demo.
The matrix
Score each candidate 1–5 per axis, multiply by the weight, sum. The choice with the highest total wins [1].
| Axis | Suggested weight | Why it matters for a series session |
|---|---|---|
| Audience fit | 35% | Topics land when matched to the group’s current pain point, not the presenter’s interest [2] |
| Series continuity | 25% | Third-in-a-series sessions earn attendance from arc, not novelty — bridge cleanly from AI/security [3] |
| Speaker readiness | 25% | Authentic, lived material beats researched material; pick what the presenter has actually shipped [4] |
| Demo viability | 15% | A working demo is the highest-retention element of a 60–90 min virtual session |
Discipline rules: weights must sum to 100%; pick ≤4 axes (8+ collapses into multi-hour scoring sessions); never change criteria mid-evaluation [3].
Why not RICE
RICE — (Reach × Impact × Confidence) / Effort — was built by Intercom to compare product feature ideas where reach is measured in “customers per quarter” and effort in “person-months” [5] [6]. Both axes degenerate for a fixed-audience, fixed-duration session: reach is constant, effort is bounded by the slot. The framework still scores, but the score stops discriminating. Weighted scoring is the more flexible choice when criteria are domain-specific [7].
Process (≤30 min)
- List 3–5 candidate topics. Stop at five — the matrix breaks down at high candidate counts.
- Agree weights with whoever co-owns the session before seeing the candidates, to avoid gaming scores toward a predetermined pick [3].
- Score each cell 1–5. Compute. Apply the tie-breaker if needed.
- Sanity check: does the winner connect back to the prior AI/security sessions in one sentence? If not, re-score continuity — it was probably under-weighted.
Tie-breaker hierarchy
- Runnable live demo > slides-only.
- Internal speaker with lived experience > external expert presenting researched material [2].
- Topic the group has asked about > topic the organizer thinks they should care about.