Agenda Building 101
In my early professional life, I was surprised that agendas, or the lack thereof, indicate workplace culture. When volunteering on nonprofit boards, there's usually a meeting facilitator, a board president, or a staff member. It’s also expected to have a notetaker or even a secretary. This differed from my experience working with operations staff in public works departments, where meetings had a more conversational tone, no set agenda, and no norm of taking notes.
Agenda building is a skill worth developing for any leader working with a team. Here are some standard components of a helpful agenda:
Date—You might know the date while you’re meeting, but if you also use your agendas for taking notes, it’s essential to include the date for record keeping.
Attendees—Similarly, leaving space at the top of the agenda helps note who participated in the meeting.
Intention—A clear and common intention for gathering is a helpful way to frame and start a meeting. For more information, check out our post on intention setting.
Check-in—At the top of the agenda, check-ins help humanize a meeting. I'm not fond of generic icebreakers, but I love a real and meaningful check-in. Check out our post on check-ins for more.
Discussion Items—The person who initiated the meeting can prepare a list of discussion items but consider strategies for building opportunities for the team to contribute to the agenda before or at the top of the agenda. Check out this post for more on creating discussion items.
Timeframes— Estimate how much time you’ll need for each agenda component. Planning for more time than you think you’ll need is best, especially for open-ended discussions.
Action Items—In this area of the agenda, tasks are noted to be completed following the meeting. It’s important to consider who is accountable for the task and name that person. Reflect on whether they are set up for success (i.e., resources, time, clarity, etc.) and have a checklist of what they need to do to complete the task. The helpful technique here is asking, " What does done look like?”
Notes—You and the team can decide whether to include a note section at the bottom of the agenda or build the notes into each discussion item. For more on action items and note taking, check out this post.
