Practical Ready Made Agenda Items for Your Next Meeting
One sure way to lead lousy meetings is to rely on spontaneity. Never let spontaneity be an excuse for lack of preparation.
Spontaneity within a plan is more effective than spontaneity as a plan.
Potential agenda items:
At the beginning of a meeting:
- The goal of this meeting is ….
- The result of this meeting will be ….
Exploiting strengths:
- Decide where we are winning and why.
- Decide where we are most effective and why.
- Determine our most profitable line of business.
- Come up with three ways to expand our most profitable line of business.
- Execute one way to expand our most profitable line of business.
Confronting waste:
- Decide the main area where we are pouring more in than we are getting out. Adopt a short-term action plan to make improvements in that area.
- Reallocate resources that are producing disappointing results, if #1 on this list doesn’t help.
- Make a list of three behaviors/initiatives/programs we might stop. Determine how to address the top item on the ‘stop list’.
Maximizing customer experience:
- Determine the story we want our customers telling about us.
- What three things will we do this week/month to inspire the stories we want our customers telling about us?
Team development:
- Complete this statement for the person to your right, “When I see you at your best, I see you….”
- One way to improve our next meeting is….
Seizing opportunities:
Meeting one:
- What opportunities might we explore? (Open discussion.)
- Which of these opportunities seem most promising?
- Who will do homework on potential opportunities and report at our next meeting?
Meeting two:
- Report on potential opportunities?
- What opportunities should we consider implementing?
- Who will do homework on opportunities under consideration?
Meeting three:
- Report on opportunities under consideration?
- Which opportunity will we exploit?
- What’s the next step? Establish clear action items and deadlines.
What agenda items might you suggest for leadership meetings?
Every meeting I attend has the same agenda:
What work is coming in in the next week/fortnight/month?
What work do we have to deliver in the next week/fortnight/month?
Who the hell is going to do it?
What do we do about the gaps?
Customer stories? Team development? Opportunities? Chance would be fine thing!
Thanks Mitch. There is power in consistency. People know what matters and can prepare.
As a truly anti-meeting person, I like the agenda breakdown you have here. One thing I would add is to advocate for attendees to come prepared to meet and don’t just show up. Additionally, as I have written before Focus on making Decisions and taking Action. If this is not going to happen, don’t meet.
Thanks Jim. Yes, preparation is essential.
I’m totally on board with make decisions and take action. I didn’t put on my list, ‘discuss’ opportunities. That language only makes meetings irritating and less effective.
One ad agency where I was a member of the creative team mandated Monday project review meetings. Even though these sometimes lasted up to 3 hours, they ended with: who is responsible for what, and what are the deadlines? So often, meetings can end without tasks being assigned and without accountability.
Thanks Williams….. Yes. Yes. Yes. If there are no action items, what is the point?
I find for me to be able to delegate knowing the members will respond, since we are all on the team so go speak. The odd side is when no one compromises, we should be past “it’s my way or the highway”, we as Leaders have the capability to enhance others with opportunities that can build a better workplace, for all.
I would only add, if a person is not contributing anything to this meeting, they ought not to attend. There’s no sense in having baggage in the room and it offsets any momentum the leader may be intending to generate.
May be pre-agenda/meeting invite stage, more at the planning stage but either ask yourself or the attendee’s (1) are the attendee’s correct? (2) is anyone missing from it? (3) if the meeting is indeed required. Must admit, when I first started reading your post today, “At the beginning of a meeting:The goal of this meeting is ….The result of this meeting will be ….”, the first thing that came to my mind was, is the meeting truly required if you are going in with a goal & an expected result (me being me and the way my mind works ).
Thank you.
Thanks for this, Dan. This is great! really helpful. Please posts more of this stuff.
In health and safety, change is the only thing that will remain constant so having the ability o be spontaneous and adjust to the every changing work place, political or job specific environment we also have to adjust to ensure we complete our organizational goals.