Meeting agendas can help keep meetings focused, timely and productive. If you host meetings, make sure you always write and distribute an agenda. You can even suggest to your boss that you prepare agendas for her meetings if you have to attend them. Perhaps the practice will catch on in your company if someone initiates the action.
Below are some key points of the meeting agenda. Not all details will be on every agenda, but do include whatever is pertinent to each meeting.
Before writing the agenda: Email or call meeting participants and ask if they need any time on the agenda. Tell them your “agenda” deadline if they are unsure. By the deadline, collect all items and then, compile the agenda. Send the agenda to all participants prior to the meeting so they will be prepared.
When & where: The most important information is the vital details of the meeting: date, time, and place. This should go on every agenda. Also, be sure to put the date in day and date format, so as to clear up any confusion such as “I thought the 7th was a Monday”.
What is the objective or purpose of the meeting? Meetings have various purposes. If you tell attendees in advance, they will be prepared to participate and/or ask questions. Some common meeting purposes include communicating project status, deciding next steps for a project, voting on changes, distributing procedures, and so on. Routine staff or department meetings purposes are usually along the lines of updating other members on current status or upcoming events.
Review and Approval of Minutes from Previous Meeting: If you (and I highly recommend you do) keep minutes of your meetings, start each meeting with a quick minutes review and approval.
List (in order) of Events/Speakers/Topics: This will vary as to the meeting. Either create your own, or ask your boss for input. The typical department meeting usually starts with the manager and goes “around the room” with each attendee having a few minutes to add their own update items. You would list each person’s name on the agenda and what they are speaking about.
Time Allotted: A general time allotted for the meeting can be included in the Details section. But, you can also add time allotted to each agenda item. This helps if you have a lot of topics and speakers but are limited with time. That way the group leader can pull the meeting back to the agenda at any time. Some people have a lot to report and some people just talk a lot. To keep to your schedule and give everyone a chance to participate, divvy the time up.
Here is a sample of a simple staff meeting agenda:
Staff Meeting
Wednesday, January 15, 2008
10:30 am until 12:00 noon
Conference Room
Objective: Weekly Update
Review and Approve Minutes from January 8
Mr. Manager: Opening Remarks
Operations Manager: Operations Update
Marketing Manager: Marketing Update
Accounting Manager: P & L and Collections Update
Technology Consultant: IT Upgrade Status Report
Sales Manager: Client Update and Schedule
Human Resources Manager: Employee Update
Mr. Manager: Wrap up
Adjourn
Try using an agenda for your business meetings. If you make it a practice, you will find that meetings become more productive, beneficial, and focused than before.
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