An article in Harvard Business Review (Mar 19, 2015) by Roger Schwarz offers timeless tips and a sample template for designing an agenda that supports effective meetings. Decisions uses these same practices in its own agenda builder for Microsoft Outlook.
Tips from Roger
- Seek input from team members
- Select topics that affect the entire team
- List agenda topics as questions the team needs to answer
- Note whether the purpose of the topic is to share information, seek input for a decision, or make a decision
- Estimate a realistic amount of time for each topic
- Propose a process for addressing each agenda item
- Specify how members should prepare for the meeting
- Identify who is responsible for leading each topic
- Make the first topic "review and modify agenda as needed"
- End the meeting with a plus/delta
Read the full article and access the sample agenda template online: https://hbr.org/2015/03/how-to-design-an-agenda-for-an-effective-meeting
