Meeting & Agenda

Synopsis

According to "CNBC," 67% of workers say they spend too much time in meetings. As a result, they feel distracted, struggle to define the objective, eliminate distractions, encourage participation and, especially, end with an action plan. To spare your team the distress, use the Meeting & Agenda presentation, which is designed to help formalize thoughts, come up with an optimal agenda and lead your team to a higher level of performance.

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Slide highlights

With this slide, clearly state what is expected at the end of the meeting. If there are decisions to be made – lay them out in a direct fashion and be ready to stress why they must be made ASAP. This is your chance to clarify the purpose and aims and describe the key actions that must occur in the meeting.

With this slide, you can create a check-off list for your presentation. It may include different items, such as projects, tasks, milestones, reviews, feedback delivery, success measurements, performance indicators and more. Checking things off the list will likely make all participants feel accomplished and inspired.

Use this slide to draw conclusions, determine the next steps and assign tasks at the end of each meeting. Don't forget to edit and distribute the meeting notes shortly after the meeting and tag each person responsible for a task accordingly to avoid confusion, delay and things falling through cracks.

Overview

There are four main types of meeting agenda:

1. Informational – this agenda involves a brief presentation that provides background information to attendees. It is normally used when a decision has been already made from the top. In this case, meeting participants are there to get informed, comprehend and follow.
2. Advisory – this agenda is helpful when a decision has not been yet made. The meeting lead may ask for suggestions, feedback or input from the attendees. This agenda allows participants to voice their concerns, opinions and ideas about the items of discussion.
3. Problem-solving – this agenda is used to come up with a problem solution. In this case, the presenter's goal is to collect the ideas and expertise from the attendees. These meetings are perfect for brainstorming sessions.
4. Request for help – this agenda is great for asking others for help on a personal or professional matter.

Application

Roger Schwarz, an organizational psychologist, speaker, leadership team consultant and president and CEO of Roger Schwarz & Associates recommends the following steps to design an agenda for an effective meeting:

• 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" evaluation ("Plus Delta" is an evaluation technique that provides feedback on an experience or event in order to generate and collect ideas for future modifications and improvements).

Who does it right

Google

In his book, "Work Rules!" Google's Senior Vice President of People Operations, Laszlo Bock, shares the technique employed at the company for holding the most efficient meetings.

The technique is quite simple, actually: as a leader, have your team players answer the question of how they plan to make the meeting the most effective prior to it and then ask what the key takeaways were for them right after the meeting.

Bock writes: "It [..] trains your people to use themselves as their own experiments, asking questions, trying new approaches, observing what happens, and then trying again."