Meeting Agenda Examples | Be A Hero, Have Shorter Meetings

Why do I need a meeting itinerary?

Meetings are sometimes boring, confrontational, and unnecessary. Most people do not jump for joy when they see a meeting invite appear in their inbox. Knowing that your audience would literally rather be anywhere else in the world, you as the host should do your best to make it as comfortable and short as humanly possible.

Here are a few tips to help make your meetings flow smoother and make taking meeting notes easier. If you've already mastered meetings and would like to skip to the free template, click here.

Only invite people who will contribute to the discussion

You would be hard-pressed to find something more annoying than being invited to a meeting that has nothing to do with you. It's almost as frustrating as taking a Music Appreciation class to earn your Computer Science degree. A good general rule of thumb to follow is to only invite people who will be contributing more than five minutes of content.

In addition, it places an undo burden for parents of young chlidren work at home. It is expotentially difficult to keep kids silent when you are on a conference call, so I only take calls when I'm needed.

If a particpant's portion of the discussion is any less than five minutes, they can probably just send an email with the relevant parties copied. Also, having a bunch of people on a video call, staring at the screen and not saying anything is just creepy.

Distribute the meeting agenda at least three days in advance

Don't blindside people with a list of deliverables a day before a meeting. Its unprofessional and discourteuos. Now emergencies do happen but don't make a habit of giving people minimal time to prepare. When he have to rush through things, it stresses us out and introduces a multitude of errors into the process.

Don't invite people to just listen in

This ties back to the first point but if you are not saying anything in the meeting, you don't need to be there. If a person is currently in training, just record the meeting and have them listen to the relevent portions later. New hires are much better off doing practical work and getting acclimated to the technology and workflow than they are listening to something they likely have no idea about.

Now, without furter ado, here are some awesome and free meeting agenda templates.

Internal Team Meetings
External Team Meetings
One on One Meetings