An agenda is essentially a meeting plan that outlines what topics will be discussed and in what order. This could be a formal outline including a call to order and multiple steps to cover old and new business items. Or an agenda can be very simple – one or two items with time allotted for discussion or voting. It all depends on the meeting’s purpose and the needs of your business or team. An agenda for a staff or board meeting may be very different from that for a conference or seminar. The goals are the same though: to inform meeting participants about what topics will be covered.
Having a well-planned agenda doesn’t guarantee that a meeting will run smoothly. If problems do arise, the agenda can help members identify and address the problems and get back on track. The simplest way to create a meeting agenda is to use a template that already has an outline designed for you. Whether you distribute your agenda to team members as a PDF or Word doc, share via the cloud, or attach it to a team project sheet in Smartsheet, these free templates can help you reach your meeting objectives. We’ve also included tips below on how to best use an agenda to run an effective meeting.
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