What is a team meeting agenda?
A team meeting agenda essentially acts as a schedule for a given meeting. Most importantly, it includes a list of topics, activities, and information to be addressed, providing meetings with structure before they even happen.
Team meeting agendas are similar to meeting minutes and meeting notes, however, they have a stronger focus on the team members involved and the agenda items to be discussed. 💬
Team meeting agendas are flexible and vary depending on specific meeting and company needs, but often include the following:
- Key information such as date, time, location, attendees, and relevant team and/or department name.
- Productive meetings often choose one central goal as their focus.
- A list of agenda topics. Don't stop there! 🙅🏼 To put together a super-effective meeting agenda, add more information here. For example, you can add subheadings to leave space for necessary preparation, presenter(s), timeframe, and purpose.
Pro Tip: Establishing the purpose of individual agenda topics is a wonderful technique. You can choose between options like presentation, discussion, and decision. 📝
- Action items, final notes & topics to be discussed at the next meeting (where applicable).
👏 It's a great idea to send team meeting agendas out to team members in advance so they can prepare materials and engage fully. 👏
What can a team meeting agenda do for me?
Taking the time to put together effective team meeting agendas is well worth the effort! This is because they...
- Keep everyone organized. Team meeting agendas set clear expectations to make sure that all attendees arrive prepared and ready to engage! They also help avoid "meeting scope-creep," keeping topics relevant and concise. Who doesn't love meetings that are engaging and take less time than usual?
- Help team members keep track of various meetings. Many work teams meet frequently, and it can be hard to stay on top of all the different agenda items discussed and decisions made. Team meeting templates are tools that help employees keep themselves informed without having to ask for reminders.
- Encourage the delegation of tasks to different team members. If you give meeting attendees the opportunity to prepare relevant topics in advance, you'll avoid all the responsibility consistently falling onto one or two key people. 🙏
Slite's free team meeting agenda template
Have we convinced you? Amazing! You don't need to look any further to get started, because Slite's got your back.
We have a team meeting agenda template just for you! It also has a sleek design, is 100% customizable, works perfectly for team collaboration... and did we mention that it's free? 💸 Here at Slite, the words engaging and productive alongside team collaboration are music to our ears. We want to help you transform your business meetings into streamlined, exciting work sessions that team members look forward to attending.
How can I get started?
Get started developing your team meeting agenda by:
💬 Consulting With Team Members
The best team meeting agendas respond directly to the needs of team members. You can achieve this by consulting with team members when developing yours!
Pro Tip: This approach should also be used in the meetings themselves. When choosing your agenda topics, make sure to ask meeting attendees if they have anything to contribute. A fun way to do this is to ask all team members to make at least one suggestion each.
Ask key team members what an effective agenda would look like to them and take note of their suggestions. Discuss questions like: "How could we improve our time management during team meetings?" and "How should new business be approached?"
👌🏼 Keeping It Simple
When putting together an effective meeting agenda, you might be tempted to overcomplicate things. Don't make that mistake. Stick to including elements that you're absolutely sure will be useful to your team.
Your agenda topics section is probably going to be the most important part of your meeting template. Put some thought into how agenda items are usually addressed in your meetings and think about what format would work best. You can also use Google to check out examples from some of your favorite tech companies.
📌 Establishing Purpose
Avoid making a list of agenda items and leaving it at that. Provide a space to take note of why given agenda items are being brought up. This will give your discussions and subsequent decisions more direction and help you get things done faster.
...voila! You've made a great start on customizing your team meeting agenda template. Once you're finished, your team meetings will never be the same! 😍
