Your Agenda

Creating a good agenda for a meeting and then following it will almost guarantee the success of that meeting. Too many people think that the agenda is simply a list of all the things that need to be discussed. And, they add items to the agenda without regard for time and suitability. This approach will contribute significantly to the failure of the most well-intentioned meeting.

1. Identify the purpose of the meeting, explicitly if necessary. Regular meetings need a purpose, and sometimes benefit if some of them have specific topics. For instance, a weekly staff meeting may be for status updates and problems; possibly, the last meeting of the month could be dedicated to staff development topics.
2. Include only items that contribute to the meeting's purpose. To continue our example, discussing a bright, new idea is not a status update, therefore, would be handled in another way. As the creator of the agenda, the manager has the responsibility for ensuring all items are handled appropriately but not necessarily in one all-purpose meeting.
3. Recognize the time it takes realistically to address each topic on the agenda. Yielding to the temptation to include more items on the agenda than time allows will backfire. Either staff will not participate in discussion, or meetings will run over schedule. This is how meetings become meaningless.
4. Adhere to the agenda and schedule. If necessary, add the timing for each topic to the agenda, enabling all participants to help keep to the schedule. Be aware, however, that this reduces your ability to be flexible in moving the meeting through the topics.

As managers, it is our responsibility to manage meetings, respecting the time they take from other types of work. Also, helping our staff learn how to create agendas and stay on time improves the effectiveness of their work as well as their personal skill development.