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Build the agenda
Pick a meeting type, adjust the items, and see when the meeting actually ends. Copy the agenda out when you are happy with it. Nothing is stored, nothing is sent anywhere.
Items
Four rules that make an agenda useful
- Write what the item is meant to end in. «Budget» is a topic. «Budget: agree the frame for the autumn» is a matter. The difference decides whether anyone knows when the item is finished.
- Give every item a name. Not a department. The person responsible prepares the matter and introduces it, and without a name nobody does.
- Set the times, and keep the sum below. If the items fill exactly the length of the meeting, it overruns. Leave slack, and you avoid pushing the last item.
- Put the most important thing first. Not the quickest. The order «easy matters first to get going» ends with the heavy one getting ten minutes at the end.
How much time items need
| Type of item | Realistic time | Assumption |
|---|---|---|
| Briefing | 5 min | No discussion, information only |
| Decision | 10 to 15 min | The material was sent out beforehand |
| Discussion | 15 to 20 min | With a defined question to answer |
| Status per person | 2 to 3 min | Better done in writing |
| Any other business | 5 min | Submitted beforehand, not in the meeting |
Agenda and minutes should mirror each other
Use the same order and the same item headings in the minutes as in the agenda. Then anyone can put the two side by side and see what was handled and what did not get there. It also makes the follow-up in the next meeting trivial.
About meeting agendas
Time and place, who is taking part, and the matters with a time estimate and one owner each. Every matter should say what it is meant to end in: a decision, a briefing or a discussion. Without that, nobody knows when the matter is finished.
Set the time by what the matter is meant to end in. A briefing takes five minutes, a discussion fifteen to twenty, a decision ten to fifteen when the material went out beforehand. The sum should sit below the length of the meeting, not exactly on it.
At least a day before for ordinary working meetings, and earlier when participants have material to read. Formal bodies usually have their own notice periods.
In practice the same thing, but an order of business is used for formal bodies where matters are numbered and followed up in the minutes. Agenda is the ordinary word for working meetings.
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