Key grammar

• That sounds vague though.
• Could you elaborate a bit?
• You need to be more explicit than that.

Dialogue

1. Daniel: Hey, Zed. I can’t go to the brainstorming meeting this aftemoon.
2. Would you be able to hold it for me?
3. Sorry for the short notice.
4. Zed: What? I’ve never held something like that before.
5. I mean, what would I need to do?
6. Daniel: Oh, it’s easy.
7. Just make sure it doesn’t go over time, and you get some actionable ideas in the end
8. Zed: OK. That sounds vague though
9. There must be more to it than that.
10. Could you elaborate bit?
11. Daniel: Ha-ha, the meeting is about getting ideas from people, right?
12. Which means, if it’s going well, people are likely to get carried away and never stop talking.
13. The problem with that is that we might end up with nothing realistic to work with.
14. Zed: I see.
15. So I should pay attention to the time.
16. But how do I decide which ideas are realistic or actionable?
17. Daniel: Good question!
18. You can ask the group to make the choice for you.
19. Zed: Hmm…i don’t understand.
20. You need to be more explicit than that
21. Daniel: What I mean is, don’t spend the whole meeting getting new ideas.
22. Spend some time deciding which two or three are the best ones
23. Zed: That makes sense.
24. Maybe spend half the time asking for new ideas, and the other half discussing which two are the best?
25. Daniel: Exactly! And remember to take notes.
26. Zed: OK. I think I can do that