There are carefully worked out steps and almost all steps are committed to writing. Submissions from the dioceses are received over 18 months or more. A pre-synodal group shapes the submissions into a working document. This is available in print prior to the synod for further comment by the dioceses. In Oceania s case all documentation was in English and French.
Bishops prepare speeches, called interventions, which are comments on the working document.
At the synod the working document is read out. Each pair of seats has a microphone and participants, highlighted on closed circuit tv screens, speak from their seats. An electronic device sounds a bell and lights up a sign three minutes, two minutes and one minute before the eight minutes are up, at which moment the system automatically turns off the microphone. All seats have access to a headset for simultaneous translation, on this occasion into English, French and Italian. A printed report, encapsulating some of the ideas presented in the interventions, is presented to the synod and read out in full by the chosen editor or general secretary and his assistant.