Agenda

Too many meetings are ineffective in that they are poorly planned, have no clear purpose, and unnecessarily include way too many people.

An agenda is the mini-project plan that no good meeting should be without!

It stipulates:

• Business case / charter: What are the meeting objectives? What are the (measurable) outcomes we are aiming for? How will we know the meeting has been a success?
• Stakeholders: Who needs to be there? Note that what you can realistically achieve in terms of engagement will be constrained by the number of stakeholders in the room. A small meeting of 2-5 people can allow for collaboration; a medium-sized meeting of 6-15 people might enable consultation; whereas, larger meetings it may only be possible to inform attendees via presentation only. 
• Scope: What are we going to talk about? What is out-of-scope?
• Cost / resources: Where will we meet? Is there natural light and fresh air? Are we catering? What resources (pens, paper flipcharts, whiteboards, AV) will be required in the meeting? What information do decision-makers need before the meeting? 
• Time: How far in advance of the meeting do information and resources need to be prepared and shared? How long will we meet for? How long will we spend on each (scope) item? Are we programming breaks or the opportunity for people to get up and move around?
• Risk: What could possibly go right or wrong? Will some people try to dominate the meeting? Will the technology work? What if someone cannot attend?

An important and often overlooked consideration with time is that we often stick to our diaries instead of being true to our intended outcomes.

In other words, if the meeting is scheduled to run for one hour, we spend one hour in the meeting no matter what.

It is rare, however, that the objectives of the meeting will be perfectly fulfilled in exactly 60 minutes. 

In fact, a well-run meeting will usually finish ahead of time.

Don’t be afraid to finish a meeting early once you get what you need from it!

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Meeting format

Most formal meetings follow a standard format, beginning with:

• The confirmation of attendees, and any apologies from people not present
• The discussion of and acceptance of the minutes of the previous meeting
• The business of the meeting, that is, the items listed in the agenda for discussion
• A discussion of any other business that may be relevant to the group, but was not formally notified in the agenda, and
• Confirmation of the next meeting venue and date.

Obviously, the bulk of a meeting’s time should be allocated to discussing the items flagged in the agenda; for example, in a one-hour meeting, you should devote approximately 40-45 minutes to this activity.

Leaving other business to the end of the meeting prevents the meeting from being hijacked by items that are only partially relevant to the objectives of the meeting and some attendees. 

It also encourages participants to give appropriate notice – via the agenda – of the risks or issues they wish to raise so that the discussion can be fully informed and no one is ambushed or caught unawares.

It is important, too, that meeting ground rules are clearly understood and agreed to, such as turning off mobile phones. 

You should also visibly make a real-time record of the meeting and ensure that results, decisions, and actions required are summarised and distributed. 

This record is called the minutes of the meeting.

The meeting chair – the person who sets the agenda and runs the meeting to plan – is therefore responsible for prioritizing these considerations and allowing sufficient time for each agenda item. 

They must also ensure that they get the full participation of each attendee; otherwise, why invite them in the first place!?

How you do this is something we will explore in the next topic.

We will also introduce an alternate approach to the formal meeting – the stand-up or scrum – in the Unit on Agile Project Management.