agenda for business planning meeting

Your Strategy Planning Meeting Agenda (with Template)

Have you been asked to pull together a strategy planning meeting agenda? And you’re wondering what other people do in their strategic planning sessions… I’ve been there!

In this article, I’ll explain what a strategic planning meeting can cover and share a sample agenda you can customize for your strategy sessions.

Strategy planning doesn’t just happen. You can’t put people in a room and expect there to be a 3-year plan at the end of it. The conversations need a structure to help keep the pace and ensure the meeting runs smoothly. And that’s where the agenda comes in, as part of your pre-meeting prep.

What should a strategic planning meeting include?

A strategic planning meeting should include:

• A review of organizational objectives
• An assessment of how you are doing against those objectives
• Decisions around what needs to be sped up, slowed down, started or stopped in order to better align activity with the objectives.

If you think about the point of having a strategy discussion, it’s really to either define the strategy or to decide if you are on track with delivering the strategy . What you need to include in the meeting has to tie back to those points.

In other words, what do you want to get out of your strategic planning process? Is it a new strategic plan? An update to the last one because something drastic has changed? A review with some ‘light editing’ to ensure decisions are being taken that keep you on track to meet your goals?

What goes into your meeting (and therefore, your agenda) will very much depend on where you are in the strategy planning cycle.

When do strategic meetings happen?

There’s no fixed cadence for strategy conversations. Some businesses use quarterly meetings. Some might do a lot of planning during the existing structure of board meetings. As long as sufficient time is put aside for strategic thinking, you can set whatever frequency of meeting you like.

I would recommend quarterly review sessions, with a longer goal-setting session once a year, but do whatever works for you. If you are putting together your first strategy or doing a complete overhaul, you’ll need to spend a lot more time on it to get the strategic process set up and the relevant data collected.

Planning a successful virtual strategy meeting

Strategy meetings tend to be quite long. You might put a full day or even two aside for your planning, perhaps another full day the following week for the follow up.

For that reason, it’s often better to do them in-person instead of remote, but do what works best for you and the team.

Personally I would prefer to meet in person as in my experience you get better engagement with the process.

If you have to hold the workshop remotely, with people dialling in, make sure you schedule enough screen breaks. I put a break in at least after every 90 minutes — people just can’t focus for that long.

You can also use breakout rooms to set people up to work in small groups (in person or remotely using your collaboration software) so they can interact more easily.

Sample strategy planning meeting agenda template

Every effective meeting needs an agenda, and the great thing about strategic sessions is that you can tailor the agenda to cover the topics that would be the most valuable to wherever you are in the planning cycle. The strategic planning agenda below assumes you are meeting in-person, and is suitable for a strategic review session.

9.30am: Welcome

Use this time for introductions. Do an ice breaker exercise if your attendees won’t think it is cheesy (mine would).

I start by sharing the meeting objectives and making it clear this is a strategic meeting so people don’t get carried away with the detail. Discuss ways of working e.g. who is capturing what actions, what you’ll do if there is a stalemate for a decision, what decision-making tools you are using.

You might want to introduce ground rules for the session such as

• No taking calls in the room
• Take space, make space
• Share your experience

etc. I think my delegates would find this a little patronizing as they have all worked together for many years, but I can also see that there would be circumstances in which it is appropriate to refresh expectations.

If you think they would value having some guardrails for acceptable behavior during the conversations, then by all means add time for that into the agenda at this point.

10am: Big picture strategy

Present the overall roadmap, for example, a timeline for the 5 year plan. Make sure everyone is clear on where the organization is going and what big chunks make that up. For example, perhaps you have a couple of different portfolios that support the strategy.

You can use this time to talk about the current situation, the company’s strategy and how your department fits into that. This section should answer the question: where are we now?

10.30am: Coffee break

Give people time for a bathroom break and to get something to drink. Bonus points if you provide the coffee!

10.45am: Progress review

Have each executive or leader in the room share their area’s progress against their area of the strategic plan. They can bring in team members to present specific topics if that would help, and if their expertise is needed as part of the debate.

These presentations don’t necessarily need to be formal, but they should cover what objectives the department is working to, how they link to the big picture strategy and whether they are on track. Talk about whether milestones are on track to be hit. Present the budget figures related to the area and the confidence levels around meeting those.

This section of the agenda might be long, depending on how many leaders you have to get round, so adjust the rest of the agenda to fit your timings. I’d suggest everyone gets 30 minutes but it depends on what you think they have to share and how much discussion there will be about each area. If possible, timebox the updates so you keep the meeting moving.

Alternative session: Where do we want to be?

If you haven’t got strategic progress to report, use this time to:

• Brainstorm where you want to be
• Agree where you are going
• Create a vision for the next 3 years
• Document the vision and mission.

12.45pm: Lunch break

Schedule in some time to eat and return calls. I think people get back to the meeting more quickly if you provide lunch in the room.

1.30pm: Key issues

It’s worth parking the discussion of any major issues that affect multiple areas until after everyone has had a chance to present their updates, because then it’s easier to see the bigger picture and what might be affected.

Use this time to review anything that dropped out of the morning’s conversations. There might be new opportunities, challenges, resource constraints, market changes and more.

This section of your day should answer the question: what might stop us from getting where we want to go? Think about the values, skills, culture and risks that might block your progress.

2.30pm: Revise plans

After you’ve discussed the challenges or opportunities that present themselves, go back to the plans and see how that information affects what you are committing to do for the next period.

Agree changes as required. This part of your agenda answers the question: what do we need to do? If you do need to do anything differently in order to get back on track or head off in the right direction, this is where you should be discussing and agreeing.

3.30pm: Action planning

I like action planning! Strategy meetings should be all about decision-making, so you should ring-fence some time to talk about how to turn those decisions into action items . List out what needs to be done and allocate owners and timescales to each.

One thing that should definitely be on the action list is how you are going to communicate the decisions made today to everyone else in the team. Add them to the decision log . Make sure someone is responsible for creating and circulating meeting minutes .

This is an important part of the strategy meeting and it answers the question: how will we do it?

4.30pm: Any Other Business

Use this time for the ‘one last thing’ that people want to bring up. If you’ve had a parking lot up on the wall, check that all the topics have follow up actions planned so the conversations can continue outside of the room.

5pm: Wrap up and close

Finally, wrap up the meeting, draw it to a close and if you are going to meet again, put the date in the diary. Then go down the pub!

Tailoring the strategy agenda

As you’ve probably realized, there is no one-size-fits-all strategy meeting agenda that will suit every need. If you are starting from scratch and are using the time to write your strategy, you’ll need to put time aside for brainstorming new ideas, a presentation of market research analysis or feedback from customer focus groups.

If you are reviewing the projects that make up the strategy, you might bring each project manager in to present their project, before discussing as a team what initiatives need to be brought into the portfolio to ensure the strategic goals can be met.

The important thing is to always go back to the why: why are you meeting and what do you want to get out of the time? You can’t go wrong if you start there.

5 Considerations for a strategy planning workshop

So you’re ready to draw up that meeting agenda. Here’s what to consider before you get going.

1. Set the objective

I like to write the objective for any meeting at the top of the agenda. It helps focus people’s minds and keeps the conversation on track. Think about what you are meeting for and what the leadership teams are expecting to get out of it. Here are some examples:

• To define the 5-year growth plan for the organization
• To establish the projects we want to focus on to meet our strategic goals for the next 12 months
• To review the new products we intend to bring to market in the next 3 years
• To set the IT agenda for the next 24 months

You can hold strategic planning workshops for departments, teams or for the business overall. You can plan for the long term or adopt a rolling wave planning approach to plan ongoing. So which is it for you?

2. Let people know what is going to happen

Set expectations for the meeting. Let people know what contributions are expected from them. What do they need to prep in advance? Ask them for their agenda items – you might not include them as ‘real’ agenda items but it would help to know what talking points they intend to bring up.

Share any papers, timelines, business cases, strategy documents etc that make useful background reading. The more ready people are to contribute, the more you will get done during the meeting.

3. Prepare for conflict

As the meeting facilitator, you’ll have a good idea of the topics that will come up. And the potential flashpoints. For example, there are always conversations about budget. Doing anything strategic seems to cost a lot, and investing in one area means another area doesn’t get the investment.

Try to spot any sources of potential disputes in advance so you have pre-meeting conversations to manage expectations and ensure everyone comes to the session with an open mind (and the data to support their case). Healthy debates are to be encouraged!

Think about how to resolve conflict as a team if you can’t get to consensus. There are several group decision-making techniques you could try. In my experience, it’s often the most senior person in the room who makes the final call – strategy is not always a team game. It might not feel fair, but there are often political, economic, commercial and environmental reasons for decisions that might not always be clear to everyone in the room.

Whatever you think the outcome might be, have a few phrases to help facilitate the debate if it seems attendees are getting stuck. For example:

“Ultimately, it’s Fiona’s decision. Fiona, what do you want us to do?” “Let’s continue this conversation for another 10 minutes and if we aren’t able to reach a decision at that point, I suggest that Henry and Priya book some time to review and come back to us with a recommendation next week.” “IT are the guardians of that process. Do you agree to that approach?”

4. Prepare to go off script

I’ve been in strat planning meetings where we started with an agenda and then went totally off script… and the output was all the better for it. It’s great to have an agenda, and the template above gives you a starting point, but if it feels like the right thing to do is to delve into a particular area, then do it.

Strategy is too important to shortcut. If it feels like the meeting is taking longer, just say: “This feels like an important topic. Is everyone OK with staying with it for a little longer?” or “That isn’t something we were going to cover today but it sounds like it’s important that we get into it. Does everyone agree?”

Talk about what needs to be talked about. Strategy work takes time. The agenda is there as a guide but sometimes you just need to get it all out on the table.

5. Define success

What would a successful meeting look like? Sometimes it’s going to be OK to just talk and debate until you get to the heart of your strategy. Other times you might want to go all in on a brainstorming session and success will look like 20 new ideas.

It might be that you want to gain agreement on three new projects or prepare an update to go to the next board meeting. Think about what would constitute a successful outcome and try to guide people towards that.

Your next steps

• Agree the goals of your strategy meeting
• Write the agenda
• Socialize some of the ideas
• Adequately prepare for the session so you feel ready to facilitate it

In this article you learned what to include in your strategy planning meeting agenda and what considerations go into planning a successful strategy workshop. Don’t forget to grab a free action log template to record all the good stuff that comes out of your meeting. I hope it goes really well for you!

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Project manager, author, mentor

Elizabeth Harrin is a Fellow of the Association for Project Management in the UK. She holds degrees from the University of York and Roehampton University, and several project management certifications including APM PMQ. She first took her PRINCE2 Practitioner exam in 2004 and has worked extensively in project delivery for over 20 years. Elizabeth is also the founder of the Project Management Rebels community, a mentoring group for professionals. She's written several books for project managers including Managing Multiple Projects .

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How to Facilitate a Successful Strategic Planning Meeting [Best Practices + Templates]

Written by: Raja Mandal

A strategic planning meeting isn't like your typical meeting where you sit around the table and discuss what happened last week.

It’s an event when leaders come together to assess the organization's current state, set long-term goals and create a roadmap to achieve them. As a meeting host, it's your job to make sure these high stake gatherings are productive.

According to Gartner, organizations that effectively unlock the capacity to implement new growth strategies increase their bottom line by 77% .

But where do you begin? How do you ensure that everyone is on the same page and that the meeting lives up to its billing?

This article will walk you through the steps of successfully running a strategic planning meeting and help you get the most out of it.

Let’s start!

Table of Contents

What is a strategic planning meeting, what is the purpose of a strategic planning meeting, benefits of a strategic planning meeting, how to run a strategic planning meeting.

• 10 Templates to Use for a Strategic Planning Meeting
• A strategic planning meeting is an opportunity for you and your team to gather and discuss your business's future and the steps needed to grow.
• A strategic planning meeting aims to assess the current position, set long-term goals, create a success roadmap, and bring diverse perspectives together.
• The seven steps of running a successful strategic planning meeting include defining the purpose, inviting the right people, developing an agenda, conducting a SWOT analysis, setting long-term goals, developing strategy roadmaps and using the right tools.
• Follow the six best practices to run a successful meeting; prepare background materials, set ground rules, encourage active participation, stay focused, manage time, document and share outcomes, and evaluate and reflect.
• Use Visme's easy-to-use tools and templates to create the visuals you need to run the meeting successfully. Sign-up for Visme to get started.

A strategic planning meeting is a gathering of stakeholders in an organization to create a strategic plan that outlines the organization’s goals and objectives and the strategies and tactics required. It's a time to assess the company’s current state, identify areas for improvement, set short and long-term goals and create a roadmap to achieve them.

During a strategic planning meeting, leaders from different departments or areas of an organization come together to share their insights and expertise. This collaboration brings together diverse perspectives and creates a more comprehensive plan.

The meeting may also include external stakeholders, such as customers or partners, to provide additional feedback.

Once the strategic plan is in place, it's essential to communicate it to the entire organization. This ensures that everyone is aligned with the organization's goals and understands their role in achieving them. Regular check-ins and progress reports can also keep the plan on track.

We know that the purpose of strategic planning is to set goals for the future and plan how to achieve them. But what does that mean in practice? How do you create a clear picture of where your company is headed?

Here are the purposes of a strategic planning meeting that you can use to guide your meetings:

Assess the Organization’s Current Position

One of the primary purposes of a strategic planning meeting is to evaluate the organization's current state. This involves reviewing its performance, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This information helps leaders identify improvement areas and create a plan that aligns with the organization's broader mission and vision.

Use the SWOT analysis template below from Visme’s library to capture and visualize the data you found in the meeting.

Set Long-Term Goals

Another crucial purpose of a strategic planning meeting is to establish long-term goals. These goals should be achievable, measurable, and aligned with the organization's mission and vision. They help provide direction and focus for the organization, ensuring all efforts are aligned towards a common purpose.

If you need help setting and reaching your goals, read this comprehensive guide on setting SMART goals . Also, here’s a SMART goal-setting template you can use to make your own.

Create a Roadmap for Success

Once the long-term goals are established, a strategic planning meeting is an opportunity to create a roadmap for success. This involves identifying the strategies and tactics required to achieve the goals, as well as the resources and timelines needed to execute them.

The roadmap should be realistic and actionable, providing a clear path to achieving the organization's objectives.

For example, suppose your strategic planning meeting is about redefining your marketing strategy. In that case, the roadmap should outline how your organization will move from its current approach to a more effective one.

Here's a roadmap template that you can customize to make your own.

Bring Together Diverse Perspectives

A strategic planning meeting provides an opportunity to bring together leaders from different departments and areas of the organization. This collaboration leverages the diverse perspectives and expertise of everyone involved, creating a more comprehensive plan that is better aligned with the organization's mission and vision.

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Let’s discuss the benefits of a strategic planning meeting to assess whether your organization would benefit and make the sessions more effective and productive.

Also, you would understand why many organizations invest time and resources in strategic planning meetings.

1. Increased Clarity and Focus: Leaders can ensure that everyone is aligned and working towards a common purpose by setting long-term goals and creating a roadmap for success. This clarity and focus help to improve decision-making, increase productivity and ultimately drive results.

2. Improved Collaboration and Communication: Leaders from different areas of the organization come together to discuss a plan for the future. This collaboration helps to leverage diverse perspectives and expertise, creating a more comprehensive plan that aligns with the organization's mission and vision. Additionally, the strategic planning meeting allows leaders to communicate the plan to the entire organization, ensuring everyone is on the same page.

3. Better Resource Allocation: You can identify the resources required to achieve the organization's goals. By creating a comprehensive plan, you can better allocate resources, such as budget and personnel, to ensure they are used effectively and efficiently.

4. Increased Adaptability: A strategic planning meeting is not a one-time event. It's essential to check in on progress and make adjustments as needed regularly. This ongoing adaptability helps to ensure that the organization remains aligned with its long-term goals, even as circumstances change.

Now we will explore seven key elements that, when combined, create the perfect recipe for successful meetings.

From defining your meeting's purpose and goals to using visual aids and brainstorming tools, we'll provide practical tips and strategies to elevate your meeting game.

1. Define the Purpose and Goals of the Meeting

This is the obvious first step to running a strategic planning meeting. Nobody wants to host a meeting they don’t know the purpose and goals of. It would be a horrible day at work for any professional at any organization.

Ask yourself why the meeting is being held and what you hope to accomplish by the end of it. This could range from updating team members on project progress to brainstorming new ideas.

Once the purpose is clear, set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals for the meeting. These goals will guide the discussion and help participants focus on the objectives.

For best results, share the purpose and goals with all attendees beforehand so everyone comes to the meeting prepared and engaged.

If you have difficulty achieving goals, maybe you aren’t setting them right. Use Visme’s SMART goal-setting templates to set achievable goals. Here’s an example template.

2. Invite the Right People

A critical aspect of any successful meeting is inviting the right people. This means including stakeholders and decision-makers directly impacting the meeting's goals and purpose. Additionally, consider inviting subject matter experts or team members who can contribute valuable insights and perspectives to the discussion.

To ensure optimal engagement and productivity, avoid inviting too many attendees. This can lead to unproductive discussions and hinder decision-making. Before sending out invitations, consider each person's role in the meeting and how they can contribute to achieving the set goals.

3. Develop an Agenda

An agenda serves as a roadmap for your meeting, providing structure and direction. Start by listing the topics to be covered in order of importance or relevance. Allocate time slots for each topic, keeping in mind the overall duration of the meeting. Include breaks and time for Q&A or open discussion.

Share the agenda with attendees in advance, giving them ample time to prepare their thoughts and contributions. This will help the meeting run smoothly and ensure that all key points are addressed.

While setting up the meeting agenda, it’s easy to forget the small details. This easily understandable concept map template will help you plan the agenda. Customize it using Visme’s concept map maker to fit your needs.

4. Conduct a SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that helps identify an organization's or project's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Incorporating a SWOT analysis into your meeting can help participants better understand the current situation and make more informed decisions.

Begin by having attendees brainstorm and discuss the internal strengths and weaknesses of the project or organization. Next, analyze the external opportunities and threats that may impact success. Encourage open and honest discussion, leading to a more accurate and comprehensive analysis.

Use our online SWOT analysis generator to capture and visualize the findings of your analysis. Find hundreds of SWOT analysis templates in Visme’s library and choose the one that matches your intent.

Here’s an example template to get you started.

5. Set Long-Term Goals

During the meeting, engage attendees in a discussion about the organization's future and the desired outcomes in the long run. Use the insights gained from the SWOT analysis to set realistic and achievable goals that align with the organization's vision and mission.

Ensure that the long-term goals are SMART and consider how they relate to the short-term objectives discussed earlier in the meeting. This will help create a cohesive strategy for success.

One example of setting a SMART long-term goal for an organization is to increase revenue by 25% within the next three years by expanding into new markets while maintaining our current customer base.

The goal is specific, outlining a measurable target for revenue growth through a percentage increase. It is achievable by considering both expansion and retention of customers, relevant to the organization's mission and vision and time-bound with a three-year timeline for achievement.

6. Develop Your Strategy Roadmap

With clear long-term goals in place, it's time to develop a strategic roadmap outlining the steps and milestones necessary to achieve them. This roadmap should include each step's key initiatives, responsibilities, resources and timeframes.

Encourage collaboration and input from all attendees to create a well-rounded and comprehensive roadmap. Once completed, share the strategy roadmap with relevant stakeholders to ensure alignment and commitment.

Read this comprehensive article on 11 roadmap templates and find the perfect one for your meeting.

7. Use Visual Aids and Brainstorming Tools

To enhance engagement and collaboration during your meeting, incorporate visual aids and brainstorming tools. These can include whiteboards, flowcharts, digital collaboration platforms and mind-mapping software.

Visual aids help participants better understand complex concepts while brainstorming tools encourage creative thinking and idea generation. By employing visual aids and brainstorming tools effectively, you can foster a more dynamic and interactive meeting environment that leads to better outcomes and more innovative solutions.

Choose the tools that best fit the needs of your meeting and attendees, and ensure all participants are comfortable using them.

If you are conducting the meeting online, using a whiteboard is the best way to keep everyone on the same page. Use Visme’s free online whiteboard tool to brainstorm your agenda, plan your meeting and successfully run the meeting.

The tool comes with many types of templates, such as mind maps, concept maps, flowcharts, storyboards and more. Furthermore, you get advanced yet easy-to-use features to improve collaboration, such as hand-drawing capabilities, notes, shapes, adjustable canvas and more.

And the best part is that you get access to every Visme feature, from animated graphics and illustrations to charts and graphs on the whiteboard.

11 Templates to Use for a Strategic Planning Meeting

To help you make your meetings more productive and efficient, we'll introduce you to 10 essential templates for your strategic planning meetings.

These templates cover various aspects of the planning process, including meeting agendas, project updates, sales strategies and more.

1. Meeting Agenda Whiteboard Template

Let’s begin with this meeting agenda whiteboard template. It visually represents the agenda, with different sections for each item. The whiteboard layout makes it easy to add, move and remove items as needed.

The “Agenda” section lists topics, presenters, dates and times. Learn about who will give presentations and what you can expect from them. The other sections briefly introduce the experts and information, such as organizations, places and objectives.

The template ensures that all necessary topics are covered during the meeting and that time is used effectively. It also allows for easy collaboration and brainstorming, as all attendees can see the agenda and contribute their ideas.

Visme’s collaborative design features will make your collaboration and brainstorming sessions more effective and streamlined. It will allow you to tag your team members, review, respond to and resolve comments, pin annotations, add sticky notes and more.

With the live editing feature, any collaborator can make changes to a design project and the changes will appear live.

Watch the video below to learn more about Visme’s collaboration features for teams.

2. Meeting Notes Whiteboard Template

With its sleek and modern design, the meeting notes whiteboard template is perfect for capturing and organizing the most important ideas and action items discussed during the meeting.

The complementary color combination and the presentation of the content in sticky notes give the template a neat and clean look. This will make it easy for participants to follow along and understand the most important points discussed during the meeting.

You can customize almost everything in this whiteboard template. Change the fonts, colors and text, add design elements and do whatever you need to create your own meeting notes whiteboard.

3. Project Status Report Template

The project status report template helps project managers keep track of their project status or progress. Make the most of the charts, graphs and tables in the template to display data for your project status report.

Use the line graph to demonstrate marketing expenses, bar graphs to exhibit online sales and the table to showcase your overall marketing performance.

With Visme, you can choose from 20+ types of charts and graphs for data visualization and 30+ data widgets to show your project progress.

For example, you can use a radial gauge to showcase how much progress your team has made and how much work still needs to be done.

If your meeting agenda includes assessing the current marketing strategy, you can use this template to show the project status report. However, you can customize this template and many other report templates from Visme’s library to present during the meeting.

Need help writing your project status report? Read this article on writing a project status report and learn more about it.

4. Team Plans and Status Reports Infographic Template

Whatever you’ve discussed in your meeting should be organized in a centralized document that everyone can access. This infographic template does exactly that. The project timeline section lets you outline the different phases of your project, and the bottom section acts as a checklist for the project status.

Customize the template with Visme infographic maker and replace the design elements such as illustrations, shapes and icons to fit your topic. Visme comes with 10,000+ vector icons , 3D graphics , animated illustrations and more that you can use to decorate your infographic.

5. Radar Chart Template

During the strategic planning meeting, you may need various data visualization tools to represent complex data in an easily understandable manner. This radar chart template is one of them. You can use it to present your company’s regional sales data.

To customize this template’s design, change the text and color scheme and add new design elements such as legible fonts, high-resolution photos and icons.

Visme has a shortcut feature that helps you find everything in Visme with just a press of the keyboard. Just type the “/” key on your keyboard, and a menu will pop up with everything you need.

6. Gantt Chart Infographic Template

Imagine you have been tasked with arranging a team-building retreat for your company. Your goal is to deliver a memorable experience for your colleagues by organizing engaging workshops, team-building exercises, and well-planned activities.

However, without a well-defined and comprehensive plan, you might overlook crucial aspects of the retreat, such as transportation and accommodations, or face difficulties in meeting deadlines.

The same goes for planning a strategic planning meeting. You need a clear and concise action plan to ensure everything runs smoothly and you achieve your objectives. This is where a program planning Gantt chart template comes in handy.

The Gantt chart visually represents a project's timeline, tasks and deadlines. With this template, you can organize all the necessary tasks and milestones in a clear and logical sequence.

So, if you want your strategic planning meeting to succeed, include a Gantt chart template in your toolkit.

7. Product Roadmap Whiteboard Template

Are you holding the strategic planning meeting to launch a new product or service? If yes, then you might be interested in this product roadmap whiteboard template. It comes with a modern design with bold colors and shapes that make it easy to read the content.

And since it’s in whiteboard format, you can bring everyone together to work on it and adjust the roadmap accordingly.

Use Visme's AI image generator to create stunning images, icons, illustrations and other graphics for your product roadmap. This will enhance the visual appeal of your product roadmap, making it more engaging and easier for your team members to comprehend.

8. Organizational Chart Template

In a strategic planning meeting, an organizational chart template is invaluable. It helps participants understand the company's structure and where they fit in. It enables you to identify potential communication gaps, overlaps or bottlenecks hindering the company's growth.

Depending on your company's specific needs, you must add, remove or modify positions and roles within the chart. Visme’s user-friendly interface makes it easy to perform these changes.

You can also customize the design and layout of the chart to fit your company's branding or style. Include your brand colors , brand fonts , company logo and more with Visme’s brand design tool .

Read this article about setting up your branding kit in Visme, or

9. Sales Strategy Presentation Template

This template is a powerful tool that can help you create an impactful sales strategy presentation quickly and easily. It includes all the essential elements of a successful sales presentation, including sales highlights, quarterly metrics, pitfalls and more. With this template, you can save time and effort in creating your presentation while ensuring that all critical elements are included.

It’ll help your participants understand the sales strategy and how it aligns with the company's overall goals and objectives. It enables team members to identify opportunities and challenges and develop action plans to achieve their sales goals.

You can easily customize the template to fit your needs and preferences by adding your company's branding or additional slides. It's also easy to update and modify as the sales strategy evolves.

Check out Visme’s dynamic fields feature . With this feature, you can create a sales strategy presentation that is not only visually stunning but also up-to-date and accurate. For example, you can use Dynamic Fields to automatically update your sales numbers, market data, or budget figures in real time, eliminating the need for manual updates.

10. Go-To-Market Strategy Presentation Template

Navigate the complex landscape of market entry by providing a clear and concise plan of action.

With this go-to-market strategy presentation template, you can identify your target audience, tailor your messaging, and outline the channels and tactics to reach them effectively. It provides a structured approach to launching your product or service, ensuring a successful and profitable entry into the market.

This template serves as a visual aid to guide your team's discussion and decision-making during a strategic planning meeting.

Customize the presentation with Visme’s presentation software . You can share, download or present directly with Visme’s presenter tool.

Visme’s presentation tool is loved by users from across the globe and is considered to be more powerful than other available tools.

Hear it from one of our loving users Jessica L. | Small-Business Owner.

"No need to go back to PowerPoint. Visme makes project presentations easy and fast. Lots of useful templates and excellent graphics. I enjoy the features they continue to add and update often. They make project work easy"

11. General Six-Pager Memo Plan

An Amazon 6-pager is a document that Jeff Bezo introduced to help improve and streamline Amazon's internal communication, guide meetings and help with team decision-making processes.

If you'd like to emulate the same strategic planning that Amazon implements, you can use this Amazon 6-page memo. It's customizable and can be used for a wide range of industries. It has a modern layout, which is fully customizable.

This template includes all the sections needed, such as an introduction, goal, business state, strategic priorities and more. Make this template yours by adding your logo and rebranding it with your company colors and fonts.

Best Practices for a Successful Strategic Plan Meeting

To ensure your strategic plan meeting is productive, follow these best practices before, during, and after the meeting.

Made with Visme Infographic Maker

Before the Meeting

1. prepare background materials.

Develop and distribute background materials that provide context and information relevant to the strategic plan meeting. These materials might include a summary of previous strategic plans, a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis, or an overview of the organization's current situation.

By sharing these materials in advance, participants can familiarize themselves with the context and be better equipped to contribute to the discussions. This means sharing reports, business cases, project plans, and more.

2. Establish Ground Rules

Set ground rules for participation and communication to ensure a productive and inclusive meeting environment. These may include guidelines on active listening, staying on topic or respecting differing opinions. Communicate these rules to all participants ahead of the meeting and encourage everyone to follow them during discussions.

During the Meeting

3. encourage active participation.

Facilitate open communication and collaboration by encouraging all participants to share their ideas, insights, and perspectives. This can be done by creating a comfortable environment and using engaging techniques such as brainstorming, round-robin discussions, or small group activities.

It's crucial for the meeting leader to actively listen to participants, ask open-ended questions, and provide positive reinforcement to foster a sense of inclusivity.

4. Stay Focused and Manage Time

Keep the meeting on track by sticking to the agenda and putting time constraints.

Establish time limits for each topic and use a timer to ensure discussions stay focused. As the meeting facilitator, be prepared to intervene if the discussion veers off course and redirect the conversation back to the primary objectives.

After the Meeting

5. document and share outcomes.

Record the meeting's main takeaways, decisions and action items, and distribute these to all participants. This documentation should be clear, concise, and well-organized, making it easy for everyone to understand their responsibilities and deadlines. A shared document can keep everyone accountable and informed about progress.

Using Visme’s meeting minute templates is one of the best ways to take notes during the meeting. Take important notes about what was discussed, what actions were taken, future plans and anything else you find essential.

Here’s an example meeting minute template that you can use:

6. Evaluate and Reflect

After the meeting, take time to evaluate its effectiveness and identify areas for improvement. Solicit participant feedback to gain insights into what worked well and what could be improved. Reflect on this feedback and implement changes for future strategic plan meetings to ensure continuous improvement in the planning process.

Once the meeting is over, use an evaluation report to summarize the meeting's outcomes and better understand its effectiveness. Visme offers a variety of evaluation report templates that are customizable to fit your specific needs. Here’s an example template that you can use right now:

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some of the most frequently asked questions to provide you with additional information.

Q. What Do You Discuss in a Strategic Meeting?

In a strategic meeting, you should discuss your organization's long-term goals, objectives and priorities. Review your current status, identify opportunities and threats, analyze internal strengths and weaknesses and develop action plans to achieve the desired outcomes.

Also, touch on key topics like vision, mission, values, competitive landscape, market trends and resource allocation.

Q. What Are the Objectives of a Strategic Planning Meeting?

The primary objectives of a strategic planning meeting are to establish a shared vision, set long-term goals and objectives, identify opportunities and threats and determine priorities.

These meetings are also important for allocating resources and creating actionable plans to drive organizational growth, competitiveness and sustainability.

Q. What Questions Should I Ask in Strategic Planning?

When engaging in strategic planning, ask questions that help clarify your organization's vision, mission, and critical success factors. Some questions include: What is our overarching purpose? Who is our target audience? What sets us apart from our competitors? What vulnerability?

By asking these questions, you'll better understand your organization's strategic position and the steps needed to succeed.

Q. What to Expect at a Strategic Planning Meeting?

You can expect a well-organized agenda, lively discussions, and collaborative decision-making at a strategic planning meeting. Participants will evaluate the organization's present situation, brainstorm possible solutions, prioritize initiatives and formulate action plans.

Additionally, the meeting may incorporate team-building activities and offer opportunities for feedback.

Q. How Do You Run a Strategy Review Meeting?

To run a successful strategy review meeting, plan a clear agenda and prepare materials from the previous strategic planning meeting. Find ways to adjust the plan, assign new tasks and take other necessary steps to meet your organization's goals.

Q. What is a Strategic Planning Session Checklist?

A strategic planning session checklist includes key steps such as setting objectives, selecting participants, preparing materials, designing an agenda and arranging logistics. Additionally, it covers post-meeting tasks like distributing minutes, monitoring progress, and evaluating outcomes.

You can use checklist templates from Visme’s library to prepare your own to make sure you don’t miss out on anything.

Maximize Your Meetings & Project Planning with Visme

A successful strategic planning meeting is a critical tool for any organization that seeks to achieve its long-term goals and objectives. By following the steps outlined in this blog, you can effectively plan and facilitate a strategic planning meeting that leverages the diverse perspectives and expertise of everyone involved.

From defining the meeting's purpose and objectives to setting realistic goals and objectives, Visme's templates and features can help you create compelling visual aids that communicate the plan and engage participants.

With Visme's collaboration features and sharing options, you can efficiently work with all stakeholders in real-time and share your strategic plan beyond the confines of the meeting room.

However, running a successful meeting is just the beginning. To successfully run and grow your organization, you’ll need to create a lot of visual content. Visme has specific solutions for all your team members, from marketing collaterals and sales assets to internal content and brainstorming using whiteboards .

Sign-up for Visme teams today to make your meetings more productive and achieve your business goals.

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About the Author

Raja Antony Mandal is a Content Writer at Visme. He can quickly adapt to different writing styles, possess strong research skills, and know SEO fundamentals. Raja wants to share valuable information with his audience by telling captivating stories in his articles. He wants to travel and party a lot on the weekends, but his guitar, drum set, and volleyball court don’t let him.

How to Conduct a Business Plan Meeting or Strategy Meeting

Doing a business plan meeting will help you stay on track throughout the next 12 months. Follow this strategy meeting agenda to review your business plan goals, make tweaks to your business plan direction and update timelines and accountability so that you are farther along one year from now.

Quick note: you can download a free sample business plan for several different industries from MoreBusiness.com. Then, edit the business plan to create a custom one for your company.

Table of Contents

Business Plan Meeting

While many companies hold their meetings in January, the time of year doesn’t matter. If you haven’t updated your business plan in over a year, set up a time on your calendar to do it as soon as possible.

You can have your strategy meeting offsite, like a strategic planning retreat, or in your office. Offsite strategy meetings often include team building activities as well as strategic business topics.

We hold our meetings at our office over 5 days, 2 hours per day in the mornings. After each business planning session, we take the team out for lunch (or have it catered in). This allows us to break up the day and keep the creative juices flowing. It also allows our team to keep up with their normal activities in the afternoon so client issues are addressed.

Our goal is to dive deep while having fun. Here’s how we do it. Read our strategy meeting agenda below or watch this 6-minute video:

Strategy Meeting Agenda

Every business plan meeting is broken up into specific topics that we cover. We prepare a strategy meeting agenda for everyone to follow and take notes on.

We also make it a point to connect regularly throughout the year. Doing so helps us make sure we are on track to meet each milestone and enables us adjust the plan as necessary.

1. Create a List of Accomplishments and Shortcomings

It’s important to evaluate where you have been before you can figure out where you are going. You must know what worked and what didn’t. Take an honest look at your business and create a list of what you did well (accomplishments) and what didn’t go so well (shortcomings).

We go through accomplishments first and write a large list on our white board. We take a picture so nobody has to transcribe the list while we are shouting out answers.

Inevitably, during our discussion of shortcomings, we remember other accomplishments so we have a blank space on the white board to write those down.

Encourage your staff to speak without feeling shy about the answers. How comfortable they are in sharing their thoughts is a reflection of your company culture .

2. Review Company Values

Everyone at our company has a framed list of company values in their office. The list is simple, about 4 lines. It provides a lens from which we can ensure that new goals are in line with what is important to us.

This part of the strategy meeting agenda is usually fairly quick, but it is an important reminder that sets the stage for the next series of topics.

3. Answer These Strategic Planning Questions

This is the longest portion of your strategy meeting. Talk about SWOT – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Look at your competitors to see what they are doing better than you and how you could change to compete.

Ask questions like these and take notes without judging any comments:

• What are our biggest sources of revenue?
• What are our smallest sources of revenue?
• How much time does each revenue source take to service?
• If we stopped providing low revenue products and services, how would that impact the company? Would it free up time to focus on high revenue opportunities?
• What is our competition doing that we aren’t? If we offered something similar, how would that affect our revenue and expenses? Would it change our focus?
• What new lines of products or services should we consider adding?
• Have our customers been requesting something that we aren’t providing?
• What changes are occurring in our industry that could affect us?
• Are there any new or pending laws that will impact sales or customers? Should we lobby our legislators to change these laws?
• What are our financial goals for the next 12 months? 24 months?
• How will we get there?

Your mission at this step in the strategic planning process is to come up with key goals that make sense – and that you can measure (more on that next).

Remember to look at each item with your company values in mind. If a new product idea doesn’t line up with your values, it will not be a good fit for your business.

Next, take the time to create a list of all of these ideas and tasks.

4. Rank Each Task by Difficulty, Value and Priority

Once you have a detailed list of ideas for the next 12 months, you need to prioritize them. Every company has limited resources. If you focus on irrelevant activities, you will limit your growth. Setting priorities is an essential part of your strategy meeting agenda.

Next to your newly created list of goals, add three columns: difficulty, value, and priority. You will assign a number from 1-10 for difficulty and value and 1-3 for priority.

Difficulty : start by ranking each goal or idea in terms of difficulty to accomplish, 10 being the hardest. The difficulty should be higher for tasks that require longer time commitments to complete.

Value : rank each task by the value it brings to the company as a whole, not to an individual employee. Use 10 as your marker for having the most value. For example, if adding a new product line would create a significant revenue stream, that task would have a high rank. Look at each task as “nice to have” vs. “must have” to sort out what will provide the most value.

Priority : once you have ranked each task’s difficulty and value, you can set a priority. Tasks that have low difficult and high value should get a high priority since they are the easiest to do and will provide you with quick benefits. Give those a priority of 1. Tasks with high difficulty and low value should be marked with a priority of “Not Yet” to indicate they are not the best bang for your buck at this time.

This process enables you to determine which tasks should bubble to the top of your action item list.

5. Set Milestones and Assign Accountability

Create a spreadsheet for each quarter that lists each task and who is responsible for working on it. Add deadlines and milestones so you can tell if you are on track.

Monthly Meeting

Don’t invest all the time to hold a strategy meeting and then let your action items sit on a shelf collecting dust.

Schedule a monthly meeting to review your strategic planning goals. This means you will have just 3 meetings per quarter. Use these high level meetings to make course corrections and adjustments to your plan.

You should also meet weekly to go over specific tasks that dive into the details of each high level goal. These weekly meetings supplement that strategic topics covered in each monthly meeting.

Download MoreBusiness.com’s agenda for a  one-on-one meeting  (it’s free) to plan and track meetings with each team member.

Over time, you may find that some of the goals from your strategy meeting are no longer appropriate. Be flexible enough to recognize that you may need to make changes before your next business plan meeting.

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How to Run a Planning Meeting (Checklist Included)

Meetings—there can be too many. Meetings are sometimes held to discuss when to meet: it can feel absurd. However, meetings are not some useless artifact from business past. They are an important means of communication. That’s why a planning meeting in project management is key to kicking off a successful project.

Like any meeting, there are guidelines that must be followed. There must be an agenda, and only those people who need to be there should be in attendance. If not, well, that’s why meetings get a bad name. The more prepared you are, the more productive the meeting and the more efficient your project planning .

That’s why we’ve broken down a good planning meeting into the core items you should include to make it thorough and beneficial. We’ve even included a checklist you can use to make sure you’ve not neglected anything in your meeting.

What Is the Purpose of a Planning Meeting?

The obvious reason to have a planning meeting is to create a plan and get buy-in from the team. It’s the first step in developing a plan and requires that certain questions be answered, such as how do we achieve this goal? What do we know already about it? Who is going to be responsible for what?

When the planning meeting is complete, there should be a few deliverables, such as a rough outline of the plan that has been quickly sketched after answering the questions above. There must also be some clarity about who is going to be doing what in the project.

It doesn’t hurt if you can begin to identify dependencies, what resources you’ll need and which you don’t already have. Plus, you’ll have questions that need answering or require further investigation and research.

A general understanding of what the plan’s scope is should also be established. Everybody present should have a good idea of the plan. Get feedback to make sure those parameters were clear in the planning meeting and, if they’re not, encourage questions from the group until they are. This includes how individuals will coordinate with others on the team.

Key Elements of a Planning Meeting

A planning meeting is only as good as its parts. Those parts are what you have to prepare before even calling the meeting. You want to have all your ducks in a row, so to speak, so that the meeting goes off without a hitch and the plan and team responsibilities are well-outlined. Therefore, you’ll want to make sure you’ve addressed each of the items below.

Vision, Goals & Objectives

Before you can have a plan, you must have a target. In other words, what are the goals and objectives you want to achieve. To figure that out requires asking yourself simple but important questions, such as what are you trying to do and what problems are you trying to solve?

Answering these questions will define the vision, which is an important lodestar to follow when implementing the plan. This will also give stakeholders and team members a ramp to onboard to the project. This leads to creating a business case , aligning the project to the organization’s overall business objectives and identifying the project’s benefits.

Critical Success Factors

Once you have a vision, goals and objectives, you’ll need to qualify that vision, goals and objectives. What does that mean?

According to D. Ronald Daniel , who first developed the concept, it’s “the limited number of areas in which results, if they are satisfactory, will ensure successful competitive performance for the organization. They are the few key areas where things must go right for the business to flourish. If results in these areas are not adequate, the organization’s efforts for the period will be less than desired.”

In other words, what are the things you can’t fail at doing. These basic components of your plan must be defined and clear to all. These include the deliverable for the project, an agreed upon budget and schedule, etc.

Having critical success factors in place means that you can prioritize not only the planning process but the project execution. You’ll know who the leaders are, where to put your resources and how to adjust your plan to make sure those critical success factors are always safeguarded.

Key Performance Indicators

A key performance indicator or KPI is something that is of a measurable value. It shows how effective a project is working towards meeting its key business objectives. It’s a way to evaluate success, but in order to do that you first must determine what the KPIs are for the project.

Therefore, the planning meeting must address the project KPIs and, more specifically, what everyone on the project team is responsible for doing in order to achieve those KPIs. Without setting a target to hit and explaining that to the team, as well as their part in reaching that target, the project is less likely to succeed. This is why it is an essential part of the planning meeting.

Then there are the key issues: the things most pressing that must be immediately addressed. Before moving forward with the project or even the planning, there are likely obstacles that must be cleared. This is the time in which they are identified, and a decision is made regarding the resolution and who will lead that charge.

Related: Free Issue Tracking Template for Excel

Hitting these points will provide a basic outline for a one-day planning meeting. Of course, you can and might need to have more time devoted to the planning, but that will depend more on the size of your team than the project. Regardless of how big or small your team is, in order to make the planning meeting more productive you’ll want to include them prior to meeting and get their ideas and comments.

ProjectManager Turns a Planning Meeting Into a Plan

You’ve met, you’ve defined the project and now comes the making of a real plan to incorporate all you’ve talked about. That’s where ProjectManager can help. ProjectManager is an online project planning software that can help you plan, schedule and manage projects from start to finish.

Easy Imports

You have a vision, goals and objectives, but how do you break those down into steps that will lead to the final deliverable of the project? Well, to begin with, use a work breakdown structure , which will help you work back from the end of the project to all the tasks that are necessary to get there. This is basically creating a task list that can then be uploaded into ProjectManager and will open up as a new project.

Set Dependencies, Deadlines & Milestones

Not all tasks can be completed at once, some can’t start until others are finished, so you need to organize them. ProjectManager simplifies this process. Add task durations and the populate a timeline on your Gantt chart tool .

Now you can link dependent tasks, set milestones to break the project into phases and even begin assigning team members all from the Gantt.

Task Management Tools for Managing Work

Once a team member is invited to ProjectManager they can be assigned tasks. The tasks can have directions from the manager, to-do lists and include unlimited file and image attachments. But that’s just the start.

Different people working on the project work in different ways, which is why ProjectManager has multiple project views . Team members might prefer a task list or even a calendar view.

Once they start executing tasks, though, it can be hard to focus on priorities and control workflow. The kanban view keeps team members working on just those jobs that they have the resources and capacity to accomplish. Managers get transparency into the production cycle too.

Of course, team members are most productive when they’re working together, which is why ProjectManager fosters collaboration. Tasks can be commented on and other team members who aren’t assigned to that task can be tagged and brought into the conversation.

Track & Report on the Plan

Managers want to track team progress and can do this on a high-level with a real-time dashboard or go deep into the data with one-click reporting. ProjectManager is the perfect tool to turn plans into reality and should be on the agenda of every planning meeting.

ProjectManager is a cloud-based project management software that helps with planning your project and then executing it. Multiple project views make it a flexible tool for everyone on the team from managers to teams and stakeholders, who love the clear and easy reporting. Try ProjectManager the next time you plan a project with this free 30-day trial.

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How to Run Effective Planning Meetings [Planning Meeting Checklist]

A planning meeting refers to a gathering convened to discuss plans for a new project. The attendants discuss the scope, goals, budget, and timeline of the project, ensuring they understand the work involved and commit to completing it within the budget and time allocated.

Estimate the cost of your meetings with a built-in calculator in Google Calendar, so you can right-size every meeting.

There are several types of meetings in an organization. Status update, problem-solving, collaboration, and planning meetings are just some of them. Each of them has different goals and structures and is conducted differently .

To run an effective meeting, you need to be aware of what type of meeting you want to run and how to run it. In this guide, learn and access everything you need to run effective planning meetings.

What is Covered:

What Is a Planning Meeting?

Strategies for leading a planning meeting, what should you do at a planning meeting, planning meeting agenda.

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Key Elements of a Planning Meeting [Checklist]

A planning meeting that doesn't fully meet its goals could be detrimental to the organization. In the best case, the organization won't implement the poorly planned project. In the best case, it could result in thousands or even millions of dollars in losses. That is why before calling the meeting, you need to plan for it.

Planning for a planning meeting involves more than just notifying the attendees and booking a venue. For it to be productive and efficient, you need to prepare and clearly understand the three key elements below.

Vision, Goals, and Objectives

What are you trying to achieve? What solutions are you meeting to discuss and what problems do they solve? By answering these and similar questions, you will establish your vision, goals, and objectives, which is important for a productive meeting .

A vision provides a direction for your goals while objectives define your goals. By clearly defining them, they will help you not only during the meeting but also during the implementation of the plan. They also ensure the project is in line with the overall objectives of the business and justify undertaking the project.

Critical Success Factors

A critical success factor is something important that the project must accomplish for it to achieve its goal. As a simple example, if it's a bridge development project, the critical success factors are high-quality building materials and an experienced contractor. If either of them goes wrong, the bridge will not be built well.

Critical success factors qualify the vision, goals, and objectives of the project. They allow the team to focus on what is most important towards the achievement of the set goals and prevent the project from going off track. That is why you need to identify them before setting the actual meaning.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Once you have identified the critical success factors, you need a way to measure them. You can measure them with KPIs. A KPI is a quantifiable measure of performance over time for a specific objective. They provide the team with targets to work towards and milestones to gauge progress.

That is why you need to determine the project's KPIs. Without specific, measurable targets that the team works towards, the planning meeting and the project are less likely to succeed.

By addressing the three key elements above, you will be able to plan an effective planning meeting. If the need arises, you can create a planning committee to help you.

What Are the Goals of a Planning Meeting?

The goals of a planning meeting need to be clearly defined to be able to gauge whether the meeting was successful or not. They also signal that the meeting has ended once they have been achieved.

Although different organizations have varying objectives for each planning meeting, the meeting cannot be completed if:

• You don't have a compelling business case that justifies undertaking the project.
• You haven't clearly defined the critical success factors and key performance indicators.
• You don't have at least a rough outline of the plan to follow to achieve the objectives of the project.
• Involved parties aren't clear on their involvement, duties, responsibilities, and how different teams will coordinate.
• It isn't clear what resources you have and there is no plan to acquire the ones you don't have.
• Though not necessary since not all issues can be tackled immediately, you don't have a list of questions that should be answered or researched/investigated first.
• The attendants don't fully understand the scope of the plan. You can check this by soliciting feedback after the meeting.

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For the meeting to be effective, it needs to be led well. Here are a few strategies you can use to run effective planning meetings.

1. Get Everyone on the Same Page

Don't assume that everyone is updated on the progress. Even if they are involved with the project, they could be unaware of important details. As such, start by briefly going over the project and its progress and answer any questions about it.

As a manager or leader in your organization, you serve as the connection between various stakeholders and the higher-ups. So, if there has been any feedback or information you have received concerning the project, use this opportunity to pass it to the participants.

2. Assign Pre-work

Pre-work is any task, activity, or documentation that should be reviewed or completed before the planning meeting. Apart from the agenda, you should assign prework to encourage preparation and engage the employees. Think of the agenda as the travel itinerary and the prework as the preparation taken before leaving on the trip.

To make the meeting more productive, rich, and efficient, you can ask the participants to provide suggestions or key solutions to the project before the meeting.

3. Involve the Participants

You shouldn't be the only one talking the entire meeting. Instead, assign topics, roles, and updates that most or all the participants can research and share. Even before structuring the meeting, you can get them involved by reaching out and asking them if there is anything they would like to be discussed. Not only will they be more prepared for the meeting, but also you will experience a higher engagement and ward off potential issues before they arise.

By getting them involved, they feel more appreciated and are more likely to pay attention making the meeting more productive.

4. Make It Actionable

To get immediately into action as the meeting starts, you should send the agenda alongside the prework. It allows the participants to understand beforehand what the meeting is about so you can immediately focus on the actions to take and decisions to make. Also, ensure you stick to the agenda.

5. Invite Fewer People

Ensure the meeting is attended only by the necessary people. The meeting won't take longer than it is supposed to and you will save time for your staff. They will spend time more efficiently by focusing on more essential work.

With just the key stakeholders, you will also be able to run it more efficiently.

6. Start and End on Time

Most attendants usually set aside something else to come to the meeting. You should respect their time and adhere to the time you specified. If any issues don't need to be tackled immediately, you can shelve them and revisit them later in other meetings.

7. Make the Objective Clear

Not everyone clearly understands the objective of the meeting. So, when the meeting commences, make clear what you have convened to achieve in a single sentence. Something like "At the end of this meeting, we will have…".

By setting the objectives clearly, you increase the likelihood of achieving them.

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To ensure the meeting is effective, there are several things you should be doing during the meeting. Some of them include:

1. Assign Tasks

There are lots of things that need to be accomplished for the project to be a success. As a good leader, you should know who can best handle each task. During the meeting, as you lay down the plan, assign these tasks to the appropriate people. Involve everyone in the delegation by letting them volunteer according to their skills. If some tasks are not volunteered for, everyone should work together to determine who can handle them the best way.

However, you should ensure they are available throughout the project duration by taking account of vacations, holidays, and other projects.

2. Ensure the Objective Has Been Met

You should end the meeting only as soon as the objective has been met. As above-mentioned, you should open the meeting by letting the participants know what they are there for. By doing that, they will be able to work towards it within the allocated time.

3. Address Key Issues and Give Updates or Feedback

Key issues are things that need to be addressed before the planning or the project takes off. These obstacles must be cleared during the meeting. If there are any updates or feedback from any related project or issue, present them to the participants.

4. Only Cover the Necessary

You should use the time of the meeting effectively by covering only what is necessary to create and polish the plan. Going out of the overarching topic will prevent the meeting from achieving its goals and objectives.

Fortunately, if you have a meeting structure or plan, you only need to stick to it and ensure everyone else does the same.

5. Take Minutes

Have someone officially record what takes place during the meeting. Writing minutes is important because they serve as a reference for people who weren't in the meeting. They can also be used to create the official plan among other uses such as keeping track of the members' contributions to the plan.

6. Reach a Group Consensus

After you have created the plan, ensure everyone is okay with all the details. Everyone should thoroughly review and confirm the plan. However, you should find the right balance because everyone has their own opinion.

7. Plan a Follow-up Meeting

As the meeting ends, you should set a date for the next meeting to address the questions and issues you can't at the moment. It can also be to check how well the implementation is going and whether to take corrective action.

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An agenda indicates what will be covered in the meeting. It ensures everyone knows what is happening and what will happen next so they can adequately prepare and keep the meeting on track. Holding a planning meeting without an agenda will result in a meeting that spirals out of control and takes too long to end, or fails to address all aspects of the plan. An effective agenda should:

Define the Meeting's Logistics

The agenda should provide information on the location and time of the meeting. If it is an online meeting , it should include the necessary information such as login details.

List the Attendees and their Roles

List down the people who will attend the meeting. If there are too many attendees, you can list only the most important ones and the roles they will be playing. If there is anything they are supposed to research or carry, highlight them.

Identify the Project or Information that the Meeting will focus on

List all the important details and aspects that need to be addressed during the meeting in order of importance. To ensure you adhere to the time, indicate how much time will be spent on each issue. You can allocate more time to some.

Send a Meeting Agenda before the Meeting

Send the agenda to the attendees an appropriate number of days before the meeting. If they need to complete some research, send it a couple of days or weeks to the meeting. If they don't, at least a full day before it.

Use the Prepared Agenda to Lead the Actual Meeting

What's the point of creating an agenda if you didn't plan on using it? During the meeting, use the agenda to lead and control. Ensure the time allocated to each aspect is adhered to and you don't stray too far away from the plan.

Planning meetings are vitally important. They give the group a clear direction on the scope of the project and the steps necessary to finish a project.

But running one is a huge responsibility. There are far too many details to consider, barriers to overcome, and objectives to accomplish. One mistake and the meeting will not achieve its objectives. But what if there was a simpler way?

Fellow allows you to be more organized, aligned and prepared for a more productive planning meeting. You can prepare for the meeting in just one click, capture, assign, send, and track tasks, and collaborate without communication breakdowns. It also allows you to connect your meetings to 50+ popular work apps and keep your notes and tasks tied to your calendar so you can find what you need quickly.

Don't let unproductive meetings slow you down

See the impact of fewer, shorter meetings, increased accountability, and enhanced productivity with Fellow.

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• Meeting agenda examples: How to plan, w ...

Meeting agenda examples: How to plan, write, and implement

Your agenda tells your team what to expect during a meeting and how they can prepare for it. Ideally, you’ll use your agenda to connect your team with the meeting’s purpose, assign tasks or items to team members, and designate a realistic amount of time to each agenda item. A great meeting agenda maximizes the meeting’s effectiveness and keeps your team on track.

An effective agenda communicates the purpose of your meeting, gives your team the chance to prepare their agenda items, and keeps everyone on track.

Whether you’re preparing for your next board meeting, staff meeting, or business meeting, we’ll help you write an agenda that will maximize your meeting’s potential.

What is a meeting agenda?

A meeting agenda serves as a structured roadmap for your meeting, detailing the topics and activities planned. Its primary role is to provide meeting participants with a clear framework, outlining the sequence of events, the leader for each agenda item, and the time allocated for each task. By having this agenda as a guide both before and throughout the meeting, it helps to facilitate an efficient and productive flow of discussion.

How to write a meeting agenda

Crafting a meeting agenda is a key step in ensuring a focused and productive meeting. Here's how to do it effectively.

1. Clarify meeting objectives

The first step in writing a meeting agenda is to clearly define any goals. In clarifying the goal, be as specific as possible. This specificity helps guide the discussion and ensure that the meeting remains focused. It also helps stakeholders prepare for the meeting.

For example, if the goal is to finalize the budget for the next quarter or discuss new business, participants would come prepared with relevant data and insights.

A well-defined goal also helps set the meeting's tone and align everyone's expectations. This clarity leads to a more structured discussion and a more productive meeting overall.

2. Invite participant input

Inviting input from participants before finalizing the agenda is a critical step in creating a comprehensive and inclusive meeting plan. This involves reaching out to potential attendees and asking if there's anything specific they would like to discuss or add to the meeting agenda.

For example, if you're planning a meeting for a project team, you could send an email asking each member to suggest topics they feel are important to address. This could reveal issues or ideas you hadn't considered, ensuring a more well-rounded agenda.

Incorporating participant input not only makes the agenda more comprehensive but also increases engagement. When team members see their suggestions included, they feel valued and are more likely to participate actively in the meeting. It also ensures that the meeting addresses the concerns of all attendees.

Gathering input can be done through various channels, like email, shared docs, or team collaboration tools. The key is to make it easy for meeting participants to contribute and to ensure their suggestions are considered and, where appropriate, included in the final agenda.

3. Outline key questions for discussion

Making a list of important things to talk about is important for keeping the meeting on track and focused. Start by identifying the main meeting topics that need to be addressed and framing them as questions.

For instance, if the meeting is to discuss the progress of an ongoing project, key questions might include:

What are the current roadblocks in the project?

How are we tracking against the project timeline

What resources are needed to maintain the pace of work?

These questions serve as talking points and a guide for the discussion, ensuring that all relevant topics are covered. They also help in structuring the conversation, making it easier for participants to prepare and engage effectively.

4. Define each task’s purpose

Each task or topic on the agenda should have a clearly defined purpose. This transparency helps participants understand the importance of each discussion point and how it relates to the overall goal of the meeting.

For example, if one of the agenda items is to review recent client feedback and performance metrics, the purpose might be to identify areas for improvement in customer service. By stating this purpose, participants can focus their thoughts on this specific objective, leading to a more targeted and fruitful discussion.

Defining the purpose of each task also helps prevent the meeting from going off track. When participants understand why a topic is being discussed, they are less likely to veer off-topic, making the meeting more efficient.

5. Allocate time for agenda items

Effective meeting management requires allotting time for each item on the agenda. This includes determining the amount of time needed for each meeting topic or task and scheduling the meeting appropriately.

For instance, if you have five items on your agenda, you might allocate 10 minutes for a brief update, 20 minutes for brainstorming, and 15 minutes for discussing action items. This time allocation should be based on the complexity and importance of each topic.

Effective time management requires being realistic with your time estimates and factoring in extra time for unforeseen conversations or inquiries. This approach helps in keeping the meeting within the scheduled time frame, respecting everyone's time, and maintaining focus.

6. Assign topic facilitators

Assigning facilitators for each topic on the agenda can greatly enhance the effectiveness of the meeting. A facilitator’s role is to guide the discussion, make certain that the conversation stays on track, and that all voices are heard.

For example, if one of the agenda items is to discuss sales strategies, you might assign this topic to a senior salesperson. Their expertise and familiarity with the subject can help steer the conversation productively.

Facilitators should be chosen based on their knowledge of the topic and their ability to manage group discussions. They should also be briefed on their role and the expectations for the discussion.

7. Write the meeting agenda

Finally, compile all the elements into a structured and comprehensive agenda. The agenda should include the meeting’s goal, a list of topics to be discussed with their purposes, time allocations, and assigned facilitators. This structure provides a clear roadmap for the meeting, ensuring that all important points are covered.

Share the agenda with all participants well in advance of the meeting. This allows them to prepare and ensures that everyone is on the same page. A well-written agenda is a key tool in running an effective and productive meeting.

Tips to create an effective meeting agenda

Let’s start with some of our favorite tips on creating great meeting agendas so you can make the most of yours:

Create and share your meeting agenda as early as possible. At the very latest, you should share your meeting agenda an hour before the meeting time. This allows everyone to prepare for what’s going to happen. Your team can also relay questions or additional agenda items to you for a potential adjustment before the meeting. Besides, when your team members have a chance to properly prepare themselves, they’ll have a much easier time focusing during the meeting.

Link to any relevant pre-reading materials in advance. This can be the presentation deck, additional context, or a previous decision. Everyone arriving at the meeting will be on the same page and ready to move the discussion forward rather than asking a ton of questions that take up relevant time.

Assign facilitators for each agenda item. Remember that feeling of being called on in school when you didn’t know the answer? It’s a pretty terrible feeling that we’re sure you don’t want to evoke in your teammates. By assigning a facilitator for each agenda item before the meeting, you allow them to prepare for a quick rundown of the topic, questions, and feedback.

Define and prioritize your agenda items. Differentiate between the three categories of agenda items: informational, discussion topics, and action items. Clarifying the purpose of each agenda item helps your team member understand what’s most important and what to focus on. You’ll also want to prioritize which items are most important and absolutely have to be discussed during the meeting and which ones can be addressed asynchronously, should the clock run out.

Use your meeting agenda during the meeting to track notes and action items. That way, all of the meeting information is in one place. If anyone has questions about decisions or action items from the meeting, they have an easy place to find it. Bonus: Do this in Asana so you can assign out action items and next steps to ensure nothing falls through the cracks. Asana also integrates with Zoom and pulls in your Zoom recording or meeting transcript directly into the meeting agenda task.

Create flow by categorizing your agenda items. To maximize productivity, you’ll want to create a meeting agenda that flows well. Batch similar items together and ensure they can build off of one another. For example, list any informational items before the discussion items so your team has all of the information going into the discussion.

Allocate enough time for each item on your agenda. Nobody will complain about a meeting that runs short—keeping everyone longer than anticipated isn’t as much fun. Plan sufficient time for each agenda item by calculating an estimated time and adding a couple of minutes as a buffer. This will help with keeping your team on track and moving on from a topic when the time runs out.

By sticking to these best practices, you can ensure that your meeting agenda is a reliable tool and does the job—before, during, and after your meeting.

Why are meeting agendas important?

Whether you work from home and take virtual calls or sit in the office and meet in person, meetings can be incredibly draining. Beginning with some small talk may be nice to get to know each other better or catch up on what everyone did this past weekend but it certainly isn’t goal-oriented or productive. A meeting agenda can help your team maximize the potential of each meeting you hold.

Our research shows that unnecessary meetings accounted for 157 hours of “work” in 2020, compared to 103 in 2019. Considering a 40-hour work week, that’s almost four weeks of wasted time. This is where your meeting agenda comes in. If you’re doing it right, writing your meeting agenda is the first and best indicator of whether or not your meeting is actually necessary. If you find that everything on your meeting agenda can be discussed asynchronously , you can cancel the meeting and share your message in a time-saving email.

That isn’t to say all meetings should be replaced by emails. If you’re sure that the meeting is justified and necessary in order to drive your team’s progress, have that meeting. However, always make sure that you create an agenda before getting together so your team members know what you’ll be discussing and why the meeting matters.

Here are a few more great reasons to have meeting agendas:

Your agenda allows everyone to prepare for the meeting. Ideally, every item on your agenda will have a dedicated topic facilitator. When everyone going into the meeting knows what their responsibilities are in advance, they have time to prepare and will be more efficient during the meeting.

It shows you’re considerate of your team’s time. When your team receives a well-thought-out meeting agenda, they’ll immediately see that the meeting is actually necessary. Besides, it’s also a roadmap that will keep you on track during the meeting and ensure no time is wasted.

An agenda sets clear expectations of what will and won’t be discussed. Think of a meeting agenda as a way of setting boundaries and ensuring that only topics on the agenda will be talked about. If anything comes up during the meeting that needs to be discussed, write it down in your minutes and return to it later. Either at the end of your meeting—if you got through it faster than expected—asynchronously, or in the next meeting.

It keeps your team on track. Your meeting agenda will prevent your team from drifting off—whether that’s discussing non-agenda topics (like the barbecue at Kat’s place last night) or taking too much time for an item that had specific time allocated.

Your agenda will provide purpose, structure, and opportunities to collaborate. With a clear plan for everyone to follow, your team will go into the meeting knowing the purpose and goal of the meeting. Your meeting agenda also allows your team to direct their attention toward opportunities to collaborate, whether that’s during a brainstorming session , a town hall, or your daily standup.

Track next steps and action items so nothing falls through the cracks. Keep your agenda open during the meeting to capture any next steps or action items . By adding them directly into the agenda, these items won’t be forgotten when the meeting ends.

Meetings are great opportunities for your team to bond but the time spent on small talk can be worked into the first few minutes of the agenda rather than surfacing every now and then during the meeting, disrupting the flow and productivity or your team’s discussion.

Meeting agenda examples

We’ve discussed what makes a good meeting agenda and what you should avoid doing but, as always, it’s easiest to learn from a real life example. Let’s take a look at a project kickoff meeting agenda created in Asana:

As you can see, each item has a timebox and a teammate assigned to ensure everyone knows when it’s their turn and how long they have to lead their discussion or give their presentation. The agenda also has relevant files attached and is shared with all team members for visibility and better collaboration.

Meetings are a staple in the professional world, each with its own unique focus and dynamics. Understanding how to tailor your meeting agenda to the type of meeting you're conducting is key to ensuring effective communication and teamwork. Here are some common types of meetings and examples of how to structure their agendas.

Team meeting agenda

Team meetings serve as a platform for team building, decision making, and brainstorming. They can vary in frequency and duration but are essential for ensuring alignment and forward momentum. Effective team meeting agendas should include recurring items for regular meetings and space for new, ad-hoc topics. It’s also vital to track next steps and responsibilities assigned during the meeting. An example of a 45-minute team meeting agenda might cover metrics, a round-table plan, identification of blockers, and recognition of team members' contributions​​.

Daily Scrum meeting agenda

Daily scrum meetings, or stand-ups , are brief, focused gatherings aimed at keeping the team aligned during a sprint. These meetings typically cover blockers, a recap of the previous day’s work, goals for the current day, and progress towards sprint goals. The agility of these meetings helps in maintaining momentum and addressing issues promptly.

Project kickoff meeting agenda

Project kickoff meetings bring together cross-functional teams to start a new project. These meetings set the tone for the project and align everyone on objectives and expectations. The agenda should cover the project brief, roles and responsibilities, meeting cadence, actionable next steps, and a Q&A session to clarify doubts and ensure everyone is on the same page​​.

Retrospective meeting agenda

A retrospective meeting is a type of recurring meeting focused on reflecting on a past period of work, usually at the end of a project cycle or sprint. Its main purpose is to share information among team members about what worked well and what didn't. During the meeting, the entire team discusses various meeting topics, including successes, challenges, and blockers that impacted their work. This process helps in identifying areas for improvement and developing strategies to address any issues. Retrospective meetings are vital for continuous team development and ensuring better outcomes in future work cycles.

One-on-one meeting agenda

One-on-one meetings , whether they are between a manager and a direct report, peer-to-peer, or skip-level, are crucial for discussing work projects, roadblocks, and career development. They are foundational for building trust.

A good agenda for these meetings should balance topics like motivation, communication, growth, and work-related discussions. Avoid status updates; those are better suited for stand-up meetings. Sample questions for a weekly one-on-one might include assessing highlights and lowlights of the week, discussing any blockers, and inquiring about work-life balance​​.

Remote one-on-one meeting agenda

Remote one-on-one meetings require a slightly different approach, with a focus on rapport-building and clear communication. Since physical presence is lacking, these meetings benefit from a shared online agenda accessible to all participants. Key points could include checking in on general well-being, discussing current work assignments, and addressing any immediate concerns or assistance needed​​.

Skip-level meeting agenda

Skip-level meetings, involving senior managers and employees not in their direct report chain, offer a chance to connect across organizational levels. These meetings are ideal for discussing broader career development and providing feedback to senior leadership. Agenda items might cover clarity on company strategies and goals, personal professional objectives, and suggestions for organizational improvements​​.

Leadership team meeting agenda

Leadership team meetings are vital for strategic decision-making and issue resolution at the highest levels of an organization. An effective agenda for such meetings might include personal updates, reviewing key metrics, sharing wins and insights, discussing important messages, addressing pressing issues, and allocating time for an open discussion or "hot seat" session where specific topics are addressed in-depth​​.

Each type of meeting, be it an all-hands gathering, one-on-one discussion, performance review, or team brainstorming session, requires a thoughtfully crafted agenda to avoid unproductive meetings and keep discussions on track.

By using these meeting agenda examples, you can ensure that each meeting, regardless of its format, contributes meaningfully to the organization's goals and enhances teamwork and collaboration.

Running an effective meeting

It’s one thing to have an amazingly organized and detailed agenda that your team can reference before the meeting—using it as a tool during the meeting is a whole other ballpark. These tips will help you make your meeting agenda as useful during the meeting as it is as a preparation tool

Stick to your agenda. The best agenda becomes useless if you don’t stick to it during the meeting. Try not to bounce back and forth between agenda items but rather stick to the priorities you established earlier.

Stick to your timeboxes. It absolutely helps release some tension and lighten the mood if you have a bit of small talk or a quick check-in at the beginning of your meeting. That’s why you should allocate three to five minutes to this—and stick to the timeframe. Pictures of Kabir’s son’s adorable Halloween costume can be shared elsewhere so you have enough time to reach your meeting’s goals now.

Designate a note taker. At the beginning of the meeting, designate a note taker who will write down any questions, feedback, tasks, and ideas that come up during the meeting. You can rotate this position so everyone on your team gets to contribute at some point. Ideally, these notes are taken in the same place as the meeting agenda—this will make it a lot easier for team members to follow the notes and link them to agenda items. Notes can also be directly entered into Asana for real-time updating and tracking

Follow up after the meeting. Typically, the note taker will be responsible for following up with the meeting notes afterward. The notes should include any decisions that were made during the meeting, tasks that need to be completed, and questions that remained unanswered. If possible, assign teammates and add due dates to action items to keep accountability high. To ensure that these action items are tracked and completed, they should be promptly added to our Asana project management tool.

Make the most out of every meeting

With Asana, you can keep your meeting agenda, meeting minutes, and meeting action items in one place. Effortlessly share the agenda with your team and assign agenda items in real time so nothing falls through the cracks.

Streamlining your meetings with one central tool will reduce the amount of work about work your team faces, connect everyone to the purpose of the meeting, and allow for productive meetings everyone enjoys.

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Waterfall, Agile, Kanban, and Scrum: What’s the difference?

New site openings: How to reduce costs and delays

How to hold a strategic planning meeting: A simple, step-by-step guide for facilitators

If you’re running or facilitating a strategic planning meeting, there are many factors to consider.

It’s much more than just bringing everyone together to have an open discussion — and it doesn’t just happen on its own, either.

There are several steps you can take to ensure that your strategic planning meeting runs smoothly, but it all starts with preparation.

Today, we’ll explore a few ideas to help you hold a successful session, starting with the basics.

Try Miro’s Strategic Planning Template

• What is strategic planning?

Strategic planning is the process of analyzing a current situation within your organization and making sure it’s aligned with your specific objectives. If it isn’t, you and your team must develop a plan to “correct the path.”

So, why is strategic planning important?

In short, strategic planning helps you get from where you are today to the future you want. It’s a way of breaking down big, daunting goals into manageable steps that address your current situation and guide your work.

Here’s where strategic planning meetings come into play.

Meetings are the cornerstone of the strategic planning process.

These meetings are typically held by facilitators , but anyone can lead a strategic planning meeting.

We’ll provide you with specific instructions to hold a successful meeting a bit later, but first, let’s answer a crucial question.

What is the purpose of a strategic plan meeting?

Broadly speaking, a facilitator will use meetings to either:

• Gather specific information and feedback from team members, executives, and stakeholders.
• Help team members work together to solve problems, think strategically, and create new ideas to improve the organization.

These meetings aim to provide clarity in decision-making.

This is not a typical meeting where participants spend time reporting out. Strategy planning is all about brainstorming and collaboration .

This way, you can develop solutions to tangible problems in your organization and set the tone and strategic direction for your team.

Who needs to be included?

The best way to ensure that you get all of the most relevant voices in the room is to create an invite list.

Include people from each relevant department, if possible.

This way, you can cover a more complete spectrum of your company’s operations and activities.

You’ll want to include upper management, but don’t stop there.

Bring in members of the sales department, investor relations, human resources, and any other relevant departments or stakeholders.

You might also consider inviting people from outside of the organization who can provide a fresh perspective.

This is particularly useful for organizations that are doing business in a new market or have started offering new products.

• Best practices for running a successful strategic planning session

Now that you understand the importance of effective strategic planning meetings, the question becomes, how do you actually hold one?

Let’s cover a few of the best practices:

Build buy-in before the meeting starts

First, you’ll want to build buy-in with everyone involved.

Keep what you’re doing top-of-mind, whether that’s through casual conversations or company-wide memos.

In addition, make sure to have a clear agenda prepared, so everyone knows what they can expect out of the meeting. Start by defining the goal, then detail how you’ll get there.

Also, get all the materials you need together in advance.

That may look like coordinating with IT to make sure everyone has access to company software, sending out pertinent documents in advance, or mapping out who will be speaking at the meeting.

Make sure to communicate your expectations clearly so that everyone knows what is expected of them and why.

You’ll want to spend time in your planning stages to keep the tone positive, while at the same time being realistic about what’s possible.

Ultimately, your goal should be to align the team around a shared vision and mission so that you can move forward with a shared perspective.

Now, how can you communicate this agenda?

We suggest you use a centralized space where everyone can see your agenda.

For example, you can use Miro’s Agenda template to create and share your agenda with participants.

You can also use the template to keep notes during the meeting and add refinements later.

This way, everyone can see what’s been discussed and the next steps for moving forward.

Remember; this should be a collaborative effort, so consider asking for ideas from everyone about what they’d like to see covered.

Just don’t forget to actually take those ideas into consideration.

Develop a transparent strategic planning process

During the strategic process, you’re inviting employees to have meaningful discussions around the company’s vision statement, strategic goals, and strategic objectives.

It’s important to have a roadmap in place for how you will facilitate the process so that employees know what to expect.

Your meeting should be an open, engaging discussion with transparent dialog. During the meeting, everyone should get a turn to talk.

Make sure you have a clear process that allows everyone to participate and feel heard, no matter what their role is.

In the planning stage of a meeting, it’s important to have as much input as possible.

You can involve everyone by holding a virtual brainstorming session with this brainstorming template . Once you create a board, you can invite people to collaborate in real time.

This template helps you create a more engaging and collaborative session while allowing every person on the team to contribute their thoughts.

Create an agenda and stick to it

We all know what happens when an agenda is not set or adhered to.

Creating an agenda for your meeting helps you and your participants stay on track. This agenda should include topics, questions, milestones, and people.

Milestones are the larger topics that will be broken down into smaller questions, and these questions should flow to the ultimate goal of narrowing down your strategic priorities.

You can create milestones by putting together a list of discussion questions that will help your participants get on topic and help you check in with the group.

Your agenda might include an opening discussion, a brainstorming session on ideas, and a closing review of the next steps.

When developing your agenda:

• Keep it short: The last thing you want is your meeting to drag on for no good reason, so try to limit each agenda item to ten minutes or less. The whole meeting should only take an hour or two, at most.
• Be selective: Don’t include too many topics or ideas that will bog down your meeting.
• Create a contingency plan: You never know what might happen during your meeting, so always have a backup plan in case your agenda falls through.
• Plan for breaks: For longer meetings or workshops, set aside at least half an hour to take a break, such as during lunchtime.

Make it interactive

As much as possible, you’ll want to make this a collaborative effort, so it’s important to get everyone involved.

For example, you might want to break the group down into smaller sub-teams to brainstorm opportunities for new product features.

You could also task each group with creating a list of opportunities for particular departments within your company.

The point is that you’ll want to encourage open and honest dialog about challenges your company is facing and, where possible, break down any barriers that might stand in the way of progress.

Make sure to collaboratively create strategy documents, provide regular updates on progress, and discuss strategic issues in real time.

This way, you can work side-by-side to improve your performance, no matter where in the world your team members happen to be.

• How to run a strategic planning meeting in 7 steps

To get the most out of each session, you should prepare thoroughly — from the agenda to who you’ll involve and how.

Whether you’re holding a remote, hybrid, or in-person meeting, this process will help you out.

1. Define a clear outcome for the meeting

A strategic planning meeting can go totally off-the-rails if it’s held without a defined objective. That’s why the very first step is to define a clear, tangible goal for the meeting.

For example, your objective might be to better align social media with your marketing strategies .

In this case, your meeting might include a discussion on the purpose of social media, its role in the planning process, and how to better align your social media campaign with your organizational goals.

If your goal is to develop a new product , your meeting might look different.

Consider discussing who the target audience would be and how you can get in front of them. You could also discuss how the product should be positioned in the marketplace and what strategies you’ll use to get it there.

You can also set specific strategic planning meeting themes as part of your objectives, such as business growth or innovation.

The point is to be as specific as possible with your goal. That way, it’s easier for everyone to stay on task and make the right decisions.

2. Break the ice

A strategic planning meeting can be a big undertaking, so it’s important to break the ice by engaging participants in some friendly conversation.

You may want to ask participants what they think of the company’s latest direction or engage them in a fun icebreaker activity. You can also ask them what they think of the new business strategy and how they would implement it.

Or you could ask participants to complete an activity that allows them to interact with one another and develop a better understanding of each other’s unique skills.

For instance, you could assign participants to form teams, and then ask them to create a project plan to solve an issue the company might be experiencing.

You can also break the ice by having participants introduce themselves.

If you’re holding a remote or hybrid meeting, you could have participants discuss what they think in a private online chat room, or you could use an instant messaging program for the same purpose.

Make sure they feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas with each other before starting the main agenda.

The bottom line? The more connected the group is prior to the meeting, the more effective the meeting will be.

3. Set clear expectations

Once you know what you want out of the meeting, the next step is to communicate any expectations of participants, such as things they should prepare in advance of the meeting.

Here are some useful guidelines to keep in mind when you’re setting expectations:

• Provide details: The more detail you provide, the clearer it will be as to what’s required.
• Assign roles: Make sure everyone knows their role and responsibilities within the meeting audience.
• Use timelines: Use timelines to remind everyone of what needs to be completed before the meeting and send reminders if necessary.
• Communicate effectively : Encourage participants to talk with their teams about the fact strategy planning is happening. They may want to set up smaller meetings to gather input for the strategy planning workshop or to share the outputs after the meeting to give employees a chance to ask questions.

4. Set ground rules for behavior

Before the meeting starts, make sure everyone knows the rules.

This is especially important when working with external stakeholders.

For example, you might say something like:

“The goal of this meeting is to develop the strategic plan for the next quarter. We want to minimize distractions, so please don’t check your phone during the meeting.”

Another good idea is to let participants know how they’ll be evaluated. For example, if you’re trying to make progress on a project, you might say something like:

“Let’s try and reach a consensus on the first three points. If we can do that, we’ll consider the meeting a success.”

If you’re dealing with a remote or hybrid team, you should take the time to define online behavior standards. For instance, you could say something like:

“If you have a question, please type it in the chat window. Using outside chat programs is not permitted during the meeting.”

This way, you’ll have everyone invested in the outcome.

5. Identify potential challenges

Before the meeting starts, it’s always good to identify potential areas of conflict that might derail the process.

For example, what would happen if someone had to leave halfway through? Will the meeting continue without them, or will you reconvene once they’re back?

You should also consider how to handle difficult participants. Can you remove a difficult participant from the meeting before they hijack all of your time?

What happens if a disagreement comes up and it’s not resolved?

You should prepare for all these things in advance and have a plan ready if they do happen. For example, consider using a countdown timer for specific agenda items or presentations, so that time is allocated fairly.

If you identify potential challenges early on, you can keep an eye out for them as the meeting proceeds.

6. Encourage full participation

Remember that you’re asking people to spend time — and sometimes travel — to participate in your meeting.

It’s essential that everyone feels like they have the opportunity to participate. The best way to do this is by mentioning at the beginning of the meeting that you’d like everyone’s input throughout.

Make sure to keep an eye out for people who aren’t speaking up. If it seems like they may have something to contribute, ask them for their thoughts on the topic.

Also, make sure everyone knows that participation is critical. If you need to take a vote on something, remind people what the vote is about and why it matters.

Finally, make sure you’re speaking in terms that everyone in the room can understand. If there are people who are new to the organization, spend a moment explaining any acronyms you use.

This will allow everyone to feel like they can give their input with ease, leading to a more successful meeting.

7. Use visuals and brainstorming tools to communicate ideas

Having everyone on the same page is critical, even if they can’t be in the same room.

Here’s where visuals and collaboration platforms come in handy.

Using collaborative tools, like our brainstorming templates helps you organize work and removes some of the stress of coming up with ideas on the spot.

It also encourages people to provide input and makes them feel like they have a stake in the outcome.

For instance, you can use Miro’s Reverse Brainstorming template to come up with innovative ideas and display them in real time. You can save the meeting content on the board too, so you can send it to participants after the meeting.

This can be especially useful if you have multiple participants in different locations involved at the same time. They may not be able to physically attend the meeting, but they can still provide valuable input.

Also, we provide you with a fully customizable strategic plan template .

You can adapt this template to fit your exact business needs and standardize your meetings with ease.

• Sample agenda for a strategic planning meeting

You need to make sure your strategic planning meeting agenda is detailed and thorough enough to keep you on task.

Start with an overview of what you’ll be discussing, then move into individual department updates. This is where you highlight progress against targets.

Finally, spend some time outlining your organizational goals moving forward and, of course, always leave time for questions.

To help you better understand what a strategy planning session might look like in the real world, here’s a sample agenda:

• 10am–11am: Welcome and meeting goals
• 11am–12pm: Leadership team updates
• 12pm–1pm: Department updates
• 1pm–2pm: Lunch break
• 2pm–3pm: Analyze challenges and problems
• 3pm–4pm: Ideate solutions
• 4pm–5pm: Discuss and gain consensus on solutions and goals
• 5pm–6pm: Assign tasks and responsibilities for strategy execution
• 6pm–7pm: Q&A
• It all comes down to solid preparation and visuals

The best way to ensure your meeting runs smoothly and effectively is to prepare it with anticipation. By creating a clear agenda, you’re able to get the most out of your session.

Also, the use of visuals and brainstorming tools helps you collaborate with your team and communicate your critical points more effectively.

You can hold your planning meetings in a more visual way by creating a board and sharing with your team.

Also, you can use the strategic planning meeting template to get started with fewer headaches.

Want an action-oriented framework to help your team continuously improve?

Try the strategic planning template, miro is your team's visual platform to connect, collaborate, and create — together..

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How to Lead A Successful Strategy Review Meeting

Ted Jackson

Ted is a Founder and Managing Partner of ClearPoint Strategy and leads the sales and marketing teams.

Transform your strategy review meetings into productive sessions with our guide. Discover how ClearPoint tools streamlines data collection, and follow-up.

Table of Contents

'Hey, are you ready for our meeting?' This is the dreaded question we hear so many times a day, in a work culture filled with meetings. You want your meeting to be the one that people don't dread. The one that has an agenda, clear goals, and everyone is prepared for. Use our guide to make sure that your strategy meetings are the ones that people look forward to (and dare we say, the ones that are fun).

After all, a key part of a successful strategy implementation process is getting everyone "rowing in the same direction." And if you’re a ClearPoint user—or considering using ClearPoint for strategy reporting—we’ve added some guidance around how to incorporate it seamlessly into your meetings, and use it to your best advantage.

ClearPoint Strategy offers a powerful platform that simplifies this process, providing tools to streamline meeting preparation, data collection, and follow-up. With ClearPoint , you can ensure that your strategy meetings are productive, focused, and drive meaningful outcomes.

See ClearPoint Strategy in action! Click here to watch a quick DEMO on the software

Part 1: an introduction to strategy review meetings.

If you want to improve performance in your organization, it all starts with strategy. Strategic objectives are vital to the success of your organization’s future. But, unfortunately, many organizations (nine out of 10 by some estimates) hold strategy review meetings and then fail to execute.

If you want to ensure the success and productivity of these meetings, you need leadership buy-in, and you’ll need to practice some specific steps. This guide delves into the five stages of holding an effective strategy review meeting:

• Defining The Process
• Meeting Preparation
• The Meeting
• Maintaining Momentum

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What Are Strategy Review Meetings?

A strategy review meeting is exactly what it sounds like: a meeting focused entirely on strategy. It doesn’t matter what you call it (a business performance review, a data-driven review, a strategic review, a stat session, quarterly reporting, or even just a meeting with your organization’s leadership), there are factors that all strategy review meetings have in common—they are regularly-scheduled meetings that focus on using data to assess and improve progress on a number of priorities within an organization.

Oftentimes board meetings have an element of strategy review and reporting in them.

These meetings are all about strategic objectives (or goals). What is your organization trying to accomplish? Are you making progress toward these goals? What are you doing to improve your performance?

What Not To Do At A Strategy Review Meeting

A strategy meeting does not involve any discussion about operations. In strategy meetings, you should be asking questions like, “Are we showing results? Are we making an impact?” Save questions like, “What have you done this month? Are you on target to finish this project?” for an operations meeting.

In short, operations meetings measure, “Are we doing things right?” while strategy meetings measure, “Are we doing the right things?”

Why Should I Hold Strategy Review Meetings?

Did you know that leadership teams spend less than three hours a month on strategy, and nine out of 10 fail to execute? You need to beat the odds. It’ll require work, but it’s work that is well worth it.

Pre-scheduled, regular strategy review meetings (where all other topics of discussion are off-limits) can help your top management team avoid these common roadblocks. Do any of these sound like your organization?

• Top management teams spend relatively little time together.
• Agenda-setting is unfocused and undisciplined in upper management meetings.
• Top management meetings are not decision-oriented.
• Strategy and operations are usually combined into one meeting, but operations fire-fighting always crowds out strategy.

Both strategy review meetings and operations review meetings give you an opportunity to stop and look at data, but strategy review meetings take things a step further, allowing you to analyze what the data is telling you and make decisions about course-correction and adjustments.

Because it’s so easy to get caught up in day-to-day operations, strategy review meetings serve to keep strategic objectives at the center of the management process.

With strategy “at the center,” your measures reflect your strategic priorities, not just the common measures of the industry you are in. It also ensures that you fully execute on projects rather than just concentrating on your budget (without concern about whether or not projects get completed).

Typically, leadership teams and strategy offices spend one to two days a year developing strategic goals, but then go back to their jobs, where daily operations squeeze out strategy. The binder with all the strategic thinking and planning just gathers dust on the shelf. At the end of the year, organizations look back on their strategy and try to guess what they did well and what they didn’t.

They report on what they did, not what they said they would do. And by doing that, they’re missing something huge.

Let’s look at an example:

An upper-management team of a New England convenience store chain came up with a new strategy—“surprise and delight the customer.” They thought the shopping experience of their typical store was boring and that they needed to “mix things up.” So, every few days, they would reorganize their stores, thinking they were surprising and delighting their customers.

However, by looking at mystery shopper information in strategy review meetings, they learned very quickly that people hated it. Feedback they’d received indicated that the typical convenience store shopper visited that store because it was convenient—it was small and they could get in and out quickly because they knew exactly where to go.

Without regular strategy reviews, the management team would not have realized the negative impact of executing this particular strategy. It proves the old adage, “the only thing worse than bad news is bad news late.”

This story shows how important it is to check in on your strategic efforts. Of course, the realization that “our strategy isn’t the right strategy” isn’t the only reason you need to review your objectives. You may need to consider any of these possibilities: a changing environment, a new technology, budget cuts/increases, as well as a variety of other factors.

The ultimate goal is to implement your strategy. And the first step to making that happen is taking the time to review it. You know what they say, “what gets measured gets done.” But it’s not going to get measured unless it gets looked at.

That’s why it’s absolutely necessary to schedule time to look at your strategy and review it. Only then can you start having an impact.

What Are The Benefits?

Your organization has so much to gain through carrying out strategy review meetings. Here are just a few of the benefits:

Facilitating the identification and subsequent adoption of opportunities for improvement

There are a lot of good ideas that come from discussing key issues more broadly across the organization. For example, an oil and gas corporation communicated their strategy to all of their employees, and part of that strategy identified a target customer segment (middle- to upper-class women who wanted a clean, well-lit filling station and to feel safe while making purchases).

The IT department had already been innovating some near-field communication technology and developed a “speed purchase” tool to help this customer segment meet their needs by not having to pull out a wallet, which increased the speed of their purchase. It was wildly successful, and when it was implemented inside the convenience stores, it made for bigger purchases.

Providing a focused forum to identify winning and struggling areas or departments within your organization

When winning areas have been identified, best practices can be shared and implemented throughout the organization. Conversely, once struggling areas are brought to attention, you can decide if they need additional resources (either financial or human) to alter or invest in their strategy.

You can also pair similar departments to share best practices and support struggling areas.

Helping departments work collaboratively

Strategy meetings force departments to talk about key issues/thematic areas that they need to collaborate on. For example, take a soda company who has decided that by altering the look of their soda cans, they can become more efficient and save money.

Senior leadership thinks it’s a great idea and they move forward. However, the marketing department, who has no knowledge of this change, continues with their previous branding and marketing campaigns. When the error was recognized, the manufacturing changes cause the company to lose money.

A strategy review meeting could’ve helped the company avoid this mess.

Improving transparency and accountability

Strategy review meetings keep leadership informed of what is going on within every level of the organization. They cut through the inevitable force fields so leadership can engage and help mitigate those problems.

In addition, strategy review meetings help reinforce goals for the organization—they help departments feel accountable for progress toward those goals and encourage the work it takes to accomplish them.

Aligning resources and making informed budget decisions

Strategy review meetings highlight departments or programs that may need additional funding to be successful. They are also a good place to see if you are putting your money where your strategy is.

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Are there any prerequisites for strategy review meetings.

Absolutely. You can’t move forward with strategy review meetings unless these things are in place:

• Dedicated time on the calendar.
• Willingness to learn a new process and approach.
• Resources. Strategy review meetings are not just another staff meeting. They take preparation and follow-up. You will need people and time to make them successful.
• Engaged leadership.

Engaged leadership is the most important prerequisite. We know of a 200-million-dollar operation that decided at the senior executive level that they wanted to develop a balanced scorecard and hold strategy review meetings.

They hired consultants to come in and set up the process—everything was set up for success. However, during the first three meetings, the chief executive would kick-off the meeting, but then leave. In doing this, he signaled to the rest of the organization that there were more important things than their strategy review meetings.

As a result, the process failed within six months. Leadership in the organization sets the standards for what is acceptable and needs to lead by example. Those in leadership positions in your company need to understand “what’s in it for me” and “what’s in it for us,” and commit to spending time and engaging in the meetings.

Part 2: Defining The Strategy Review Process

To ensure successful strategy review meetings, you’ll need to make sure you clearly define the process. This means determining the right meeting attendees and creating a good information-gathering process.

Make sure your meetings are timely based on your organization’s goals. Get the team to buy in to the agenda and the outcomes of the meeting. Because these meetings take time and effort, reduce the burden of the leadership team as much as possible so they’re sustainable.

Who Should Attend Strategy Review Meetings?

Getting the right team in place is extremely important to the success of your strategy review meetings—you need people who understand the organization, can speak with authority, and get approvals. Continuity in attendance is also critical.

This team will more than likely include the CEO (Managing Director, Executive Director, City Manager, etc.), and her direct reports. If you are discussing a particular project, then the project manager should be in attendance. If you are looking at new data, the data collector should be there. If there is poor or exemplary performance in a particular department, then have the director of that department attend. Just make sure you have the appropriate people for the agenda being discussed.

In most cases, you should include staff-level participants. After all, they have the subject matter expertise, and staff are often the parties truly doing the work—they can provide more context for discussions. But think of the staff members as “special teams”—they’re not in the room all the time, but are there to cover specific items as necessary.

What happens if the right people aren’t in the room?

One school district was grappling with recruiting teachers. At their strategy review meeting, they were attempting to delve into the issues surrounding this challenge—in particular, how do they develop a more substantial pipeline of qualified teachers?

The people who could have answered that question, however, weren’t there. The talent management chief and HR representative were both absent, so they couldn’t shed light on what they had tried that didn’t work or what particular challenges they needed help overcoming.

Without these people in the room, the discussion around this challenge proved useless, frustrating for all involved, and no decisions could be made.

Who Should Not Attend Strategy Review Meetings?

There are a few reasons why someone shouldn’t be invited to these meetings. Here’s a list of criteria you should run through to make sure you aren’t choosing the wrong people:

• Don’t invite someone at the wrong level of your organization that might misconstrue the discussion, or that wouldn’t be a good representative.
• Don’t invite someone who wouldn’t know what to divulge to others and what to keep to themselves.
• Don’t invite someone who can’t see the big picture outside of their project, or one who wants to discuss the details of their project ad nauseam.

At a strategy review meeting, participants do not need to know strategy specifics (like the next topic of your marketing department’s ebook). They just need to know if a particular strategy is on track and on budget. If there are problems, then they should be discussed, but the meeting participants shouldn’t get entangled in the details.

When Should Strategy Review Meetings Be Held?

As a basic rule, you should always make sure your meetings are timely. When scheduling, ask yourself, “When is new data available?”

If the meeting focuses on your fall strategy, then it should be held quarterly. If your meeting is thematic or department-focused, then it should be held more frequently—monthly or every six weeks.

In general, quarterly meetings should be held within 30 days of the end of the quarter, and monthly meetings should be held within 10 days of the end of the month.

For example, a line manufacturing organization has their meetings on the tenth day after the end of each monthly close. Data is due on day seven, a review document is sent on day eight, and the information is discussed on day 10.

The meeting isn’t focused on how many widgets have been produced—it’s more about adjusting to more profitable widgets and customers, improving the forecasting process, planning for raw material costs, and developing new partnerships in appropriate niches.

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How do i get these meetings started.

Since these meetings take time and require team buy-in, here are some tips to help get things started:

• Check out the current executive meeting calendar. See what meetings can be modified or replaced. Try your best not to add to meeting time—instead, try to make better use of the meeting time you already have. If the leadership team already meets weekly, see if you can adjust one of the meetings each month to be more focused on strategy. If the team already meets monthly, see if you can adjust one meeting each quarter for strategy.
• Ensure that the top executive is engaged in and supports the process. They need to be able to take on a leadership role during the meeting. They may need to be engaged in the preparation depending on the subject being discussed.
• Create a set of common objectives and benefits for each of the team members invited.
• Include departments in meeting design. This will ensure that it is a collaborative process and will help with organizational buy-in. The success of these meetings hinges not only on leadership engagement, but also getting an organization to work together in providing timely data reporting . Departments should feel like willing participants and see these meetings as a useful tool to improve program performance.
• Be realistic when you start. At first, these meetings will seem like a lot of work. That’s because they are. They’re both a different way of reporting and a different way of managing. But, over time, with commitment, the meetings will get better and more effective. It’s not unusual for meetings to shrink as much as 75% in length as the participants get used to the format.

It’s not unusual for meetings to shrink as much as 75% in length as the participants get used to the format.

How Should Strategy Review Meetings Be Structured?

How Can I Reduce The Burden?

These meetings are a lot of work. So, to the extent possible, put standardization processes in place. Determine a set calendar for meeting dates and reporting deadlines, and then stick to it.

Standardize forms for collecting data or invest in online reporting tools that can greatly reduce staff burden and free up time for them to do a more substantial data analysis. This will generate better discussion at your meetings.

Standardized processes can include the following:

• Data-collecting forms .
• A timeline —from sending out the data call, to the meeting invitations, to sending a follow-up note and so forth.
• Invite lists —have consistent invite lists for each meeting.
• Key contact lists —know who to contact for what in each department. Is there a contact within the department who can coordinate data collection, notify you of staffing changes if someone else should now be attending the meeting, and answer any clarification questions you have around the data or program specifics?
• A process for capturing and monitoring action items —if this follows a set model every time, you are less likely to get pushback.
• A process for data collection and report generation —after you conduct two or more meetings, this will be easier to work on automating.

If your organization is new to using strategy reporting software, then an important part of this first stage should be to consider how that software tool will be integrated into your meetings and reporting preparation.

Companies that use ClearPoint not only spend less time on reporting, but they also have more focused and productive strategy meetings than those using Excel, SharePoint, or any other reporting alternative .

Some things you can do that will set the stage for success are:

• Determine which members of your team will be using the software. Give them step-by-step instructions on how to update their data, including screenshots.
• Document the processes for updating information within ClearPoint and creating the reports needed for the strategy meeting. This is important in case of turnover or employee absences.
• Set up the various summary reports you’ll be using within your ClearPoint account. Review them with users and explain their significance.
• Determine and set user permissions based on roles and responsibilities for reporting.
• Create RAG (red, amber, green) status rules that will define how each of your elements is performing.
• Provide links to the ClearPoint login page and a link to the support center.

Part 3: Meeting Preparation

Schedule a meeting time and collect the necessary data. Make sure you receive all the data in enough time to analyze it and write a report. Then, create an agenda and send it (along with the data analysis report) to meeting attendees in advance so they can prepare. It’s important to pave a path of success starting with the first meeting—teach meeting participants exactly what strategy review meetings are, establish a tone of trust and collaboration, and adopt a decision-making process.

1. Schedule A Meeting Time & Prepare Data

Once you put your meeting on the calendar, it’s time to begin collecting data. Here are some things to think through and action steps to take as you begin the preparation process.

• Make attendance mandatory. When necessary, draft emails for leadership to send to ensure that everyone who needs to be in the meeting is there. This is where leadership commitment comes into play. A strategy review meeting without the right people in the room is an expensive waste of time.
• Limit the number of participants. Conversely, too many people can detract from the conversation. Make sure the people in the room are people who might be called on to actively participate in the meeting.
• Request accurate data in a timely manner. Inevitably, some departments will be late providing this information, or out on vacation when you need it, so make sure the meeting is scheduled out far enough in advance so that there is ample time to gather the data. (Do not reward late behavior—if you don’t have the data necessary, just skip the review and force those with the missing data to lead the discussion the second time.)
• Review data. Go through the most recent data and write an analysis about trends or emerging issues. Keeping consistent charts for presenting data is really helpful and will speed up your meeting.
• Update status indicators. Update green/yellow/red status indicators for each measure and initiative.

Make a report. Include data, your data analysis, and status indicator updates. Remember to keep your report format consistent from one meeting to the next.

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2. create an agenda, what to cover.

To ensure that you’ll be using your meeting time wisely, think through these questions as you begin to develop your agenda.

• The focus of the meeting should be on making decisions, not having discussions.
• Operations meetings should be separate from strategy meetings.
• Before you add an item to the agenda, measure it’s real value.

To help you as you’re choosing topics of discussion, ask yourself questions like:

• Why are we having this meeting?
• What do we need to have accomplished when we are done?
• What are the key issues we should cover?

Keep in mind that a strategy review meeting agenda may just look like a review of goals, measures, and initiatives, a validation of strategy, and a continuation of current strategic projects and direction. Every meeting does not have to include “bet the company” decisions.

An Example Agenda

3. Get People Ready

You’ll need to prep the leadership and attendees effectively if you want your strategy review meeting to be a success. Provide materials ahead of time so they can familiarize themselves with the content and formulate their own questions.

This means once you’ve finished writing the report of your data analysis and created an agenda, you should send them to both leadership and participants immediately. The data should be presented with recommended decisions in advance of the meeting. If everyone comes to the meeting prepared, it will allow for a more efficient use of time.

Sending recommendations before the meeting doesn’t mean a decision has taken place—it just allows the leadership team to prepare appropriately. To ensure that this is successful, consider pre-presenting and talking through the materials with leadership.

Feel free to be open about what will be discussed so that everyone is prepared and feels that the process is transparent. (This will also help to make sure that the right people are in the room.)

4. Make The First Meeting A Success

• Provide training on why you’re doing these meetings and how they should be run. (For example, share this post with the team.)
• Give an overview of the language and provide a tutorial session on performance measures because not everyone speaks that language.
• Teach or brief all participants on what strategy review meetings are and what they are not. Make sure people understand the difference between strategy and operations, and ownership vs. accountability.

- Strategy : A strategy is a long-term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. Strategy is differentiated from tactics or immediate actions with resources at hand by its nature of being extensively premeditated, and often practically rehearsed. Strategies are used to make the problem or problems easier to understand and solve. Organization strategy typically describes a future state, as well as the process of getting to that place. Some people describe it as a destination, as well as a description of the road to take in order to get to the destination.

-Operations : The daily and weekly job of ensuring that your standard procedures are operating as expected.

-Ownership : In regard to strategy review meetings, this is the person that is responsible for knowing and understanding particular objectives or goals. They would be responsible for reporting about the progress being made to achieve the objectives and the actions being taken to close gaps.

-Accountability : This term usually goes hand-in-hand with “ownership,” and implies that a person is not only responsible for knowing and understanding particular objectives or goals, but is also responsible for the achievement of key measures. This is not always the case in a strategy review meeting because many of the goals require multiple people and teams across the organization to work well together to achieve the goals.

• Consider scripting the first meeting, or having an outside facilitator sit in the first few meetings to ensure the process works (even if decisions aren’t made or the discussion is not high quality yet).

Setting the right tone is extremely important—it should be one of trust and collaboration. Establish principles to build that trust. For example, trust can be built by providing a framework for the review process and collaboratively agreeing on the principles by which the review would operate.

Decision-Making

There are two extremes in a decision-making process. One is when those on a leadership team talk, come to a consensus on the issue, and then move forward. The other is when a CEO or director makes a decision—he or she might use input from the leadership team to inform the decision, but the final decision is made by an individual.

What is your decision making process? Would everyone in your organization agree or is the process unclear?

Whatever the case, make sure you adopt a common decision-making process. Below is an example of one that could be held in your organization. Be especially cognizant of how step four works (making a decision).

ClearPoint ’s strength is in preparing the reports that serve as the basis for strategy meetings.

Preparing, requesting, and reviewing data is easier in ClearPoint than any other strategy software available. Set up the various automations that will save you time:

• Automatic data uploads pull data from your specified sources on a schedule.
• Automatic reminders nudge users to update manual data, projects, and qualitative information.
• Automatic evaluations objectively assess your strategic elements based on your predetermined criteria (whether you’re on or off target)
• An automatic report generator produces your monthly reports on schedule.

Design your meeting agenda in ClearPoint in the format of a summary report, with each item on the agenda hyperlinked to the associated report for easy access to the data.

Schedule automatic sending of pre-reads to anyone taking part in the meeting, so participants can prepare their thoughts ahead of time. Reports and agendas can be exported as PDFs, posted on intranets, or even printed as hard copies. Having that distribution flexibility makes it possible to get more people involved in strategy and leadership decisions; it also keeps information consistent and organized across many divisions.

The bottom line: ClearPoint’s automation features save a ton of time—you can create and distribute reports just a few days after month-end. Compare that to the time it would otherwise take to manually collect data and build new PowerPoint decks meeting after meeting, and you can easily see how beneficial it is to use software!

Part 4: The Meeting

Encourage candid dialogue and critique in the meeting itself—people tend to want to focus on the positives, but discussing the negatives is critical. Take notes about everything discussed, including action items, so that the meeting is productive. It’s important to use your participants’ time wisely, so don’t be afraid to keep everyone task-oriented. (Use that agenda you created!)

In order to stay on track, do a “pulse check” every so often—if your conversation has gotten off-topic or more in-depth than you thought it would, consider saving it for another meeting and moving on.

Meeting Tips

• Look at yourself critically. People want to put a positive spin on things. Don’t. If there is negative information, it should be included and even a focus of the meeting.
• Use participants’ time wisely. Keep meetings to an appropriate length. Use “bullet formatting” instead of narrative to elucidate important points.
• Use facilitation techniques. Don’t let the meeting agenda get derailed.
• Have a “parking lot” for issues that arise that may warrant further discussion but are not appropriate for this meeting.
• Stick to the agenda at all times if possible. Try to adjust for a future meeting, but not the current meeting. Remember, you are changing behavior and teaching people to use time effectively.
• Promote candid dialogue. Encourage people to speak up. Make sure they know that this is not meant to be punitive, but a collaborative process driving a continuous dialogue. This may need to be prompted in the first few meetings.

Someone should always be jotting things down. You need to be capturing action items, recommendations, and decisions during the meeting.

There are two types of action items—those that are already approved by the leadership, and those which are potential action items that will be identified for the future. The potential actions items need to go to leadership for approval, which takes time and planning. Those action items might be relevant for discussion and consideration at future review meetings.

Once the meeting is through, review action items as a whole to ensure consensus and assign responsibility and due dates. Make sure you have accountability for every action item before leaving.

Stay On Track

What do you do if your meeting derails? Try scheduling breaks and determine if the content you are working on is appropriate for this particular meeting.

Do a “pulse check” every so often. Are we going to make a decision now, or should we have a separate meeting? Is this something we should table or ask a smaller team to make more progress on before it comes back to this team of people? Some difficult decisions could be worth sending your agenda off track. However, if you think you have an additional half hour of discussion left and you don’t think you’re going to make progress, then it’s not worth it to keep discussing it.

If you know your leadership team gets distracted regularly, try starting the first meeting with two questions: “What typically derails these meetings? How can we prevent that during this meeting?” This will give the facilitator permission to keep the meeting on track.

ClearPoint helps keep the discussion focused during strategy meetings. We recommend using conference room screens to project and easily view summary reports, which you can then use as a visual for your various discussion points as you run the meeting.

In addition:

• Take advantage of the fact that all your strategy data is housed in ClearPoint. You can quickly and easily drill down into supporting data to help explain performance if questions come up.
• Take meeting notes directly in ClearPoint as they are discussed, capturing action items, recommendations, and decisions.
• Review the action items at the end as a group to ensure consensus, assign responsibility, and attach due dates.

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Part 5: the follow-up.

The meeting can’t be a success without following up afterward to make sure action is taken on the decisions that were made. Distribute the notes you took during the meeting to both the meeting participants and anyone else in the organization who needs them.

And set up a process for tracking action items and due dates so things don’t slip through the cracks. Throughout the process, think critically about your measures.

You Aren’t Done Yet

• In order for strategy review meetings to be a success, you can’t just walk away when the meeting is over. There are several follow-up steps you need to take.
• It’s important to distribute notes to meeting attendees within 24 hours of the meeting—this is when decisions are fresh and enthusiasm is high. Don’t miss this window of opportunity! Actions happen most often after meeting minutes are released.
• Make sure you’re communicating with everyone necessary. Depending on the meeting and the content, you may want to send a second set of meeting notes to the rest of the organization to ensure that key decisions have been communicated.
• Next, set up a process for tracking action items and due dates. Reach out to responsible parties to do a status-check on action items or send reminders a week or two before they’re due.
• Finally, at start of the subsequent review meeting, review and recap each of the action items.

Think Critically About Your Measures

• Remember to use your meeting to re-assess your performance measures. Which measures are working well and should be kept? Which performance measures should be dropped or replaced because they aren’t really telling us how the objective is doing?
• Manage any changing of measures to be proposed outside of the meeting and run future meetings with the current and the proposed to get consensus that the proposed is providing better information than the current, not just a rosier picture for the person accountable for the measure.
• Try to make sure targets are not constantly changing during the year, but do note underperformance or major shifts in the assumptions around the initial target setting process. (If targets are constantly changing, then the organization loses focus and any sense of urgency or realism to a strategic planning process.)

At the end of the meeting, review the list of action items you created in ClearPoint . Distribute the notes you took during the meeting to both the meeting participants and anyone else in the organization who needs them, within 24 hours (when decisions are fresh and enthusiasm is high!). Make sure the relevant people can access the data in ClearPoint as they work to complete their action items before the next meeting.

Part 6: Maintaining Momentum

Sustainability is about culture change. You need to generate an understanding of the process and get buy-in—make sure everyone involved understands what the process is and why you’re doing it. (Especially leadership.)

Work on continually improving and streamlining your processes in order to reduce the burden on everyone involved; make the procedure for each meeting repeatable.

Keeping Momentum Is About Establishing Good Habits

Your goal should be making the strategy review process a part of your company’s “business as usual.” Keep the meetings relevant and leadership engaged.

How do you ensure that senior leadership engagement? First and foremost, make sure decisions get made in your meetings. The meetings need to be focused solely on strategy with active and candid dialogue in order to get things accomplished. Other than the meeting itself, leadership involvement isn’t particularly time-intensive, so capitalize on the time that they are involved.

Then, make sure results happen based on the decisions you make so leadership can see that it is making a difference.

Identify lessons learned and how to improve the process going forward. Again, make sure your meetings stay relevant. Rate the quality of each meeting after it’s finished—what would you change? How could you do it better? Listen and react quickly as a meeting facilitator. Work carefully with the top executive to ensure you are delivering value.

You also need to generate an understanding of the process and get buy-in—make sure everyone involved understands what the process is and why you’re doing it. Allow them the opportunity to give feedback/make recommendations. This process is meant to be helpful for everyone, so make sure to work with each department to ensure that the process will also meet their needs.

Make The Process Repeatable

In order to make strategy review meetings sustainable, they can’t be a burden. So make sure they aren’t! A great analyst and reporting staff can make this seamless. Giving access to information on mobile products, sending automated emails, and pre-reading of the highlights are critical.

Follow these steps to streamline your meeting process.

• Ensure a timeline.
• Automate data requests.
• Use technology to standardize the format of your data. A consistent set of charts means that time in meetings will be spent wisely.
• Allow visibility between meetings.
• Don’t allow leadership to miss meetings —make these strategy meetings the most important review meeting each month.
• Ensure you have a clean history of meeting actions and that there is follow-through.
• Constantly check on the value of the meetings. (You may even want to give a simple survey about the meetings after they’re through—have attendees rate the meeting on a scale of 1-5. Ask them what they would change.

ClearPoint makes it significantly easier to maintain the momentum of strategy reporting over the long term. To take full advantage of the software—and ensure you reach your goals:

• Utilize the numerous automation features to reduce the burden of reporting (which means you can focus on strategy instead)
• Allow visibility of strategy data between meetings, to maintain enthusiasm around goal-setting and achievements
• Consistently highlight the links between department and individual performance and organizational goals
• Continuously evaluate your reporting process and meeting effectiveness

Use a Three Year/Five Year Strategic Plan to keep your momentum when going for long term goals

Part 7: mistakes to avoid when leading strategy meetings.

To ensure the success of your strategy review meetings, avoid having the wrong people in the room and unengaged leadership. Stay away from time-consuming prep, but make sure that everyone is prepared enough for the meeting to be effective.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in “the big picture,” so remember that you also need action items and measures you can manage as takeaways from your meetings. And, of course, always follow up. Follow-through on action items is critical to these strategy meetings making a difference in your organization.

Common Roadblocks To Avoid

• Unengaged leadership : We can’t mention this one enough. If your leadership isn’t engaged, then your attendees won’t be either. The future success of your meetings depends on leadership buy-in.
• Poor data quality or poor response to data call : The data won’t be perfect at first—just make sure it evolves. You may have to push departments to provide data at first. It’s okay if participants feel that they don’t have sufficient data—use these meetings as a forcing mechanism for them to start collecting it.
• An improper balance between intermediate outcome measures and output measures : You need to be looking at outcomes and “the big picture,” but you also need action items and measures you can manage.
• Time-consuming prep : Streamlining every process and making things repeatable is crucial.
• The wrong people in the room : Remember, meeting attendees need to understand the organization, be able to speak with authority, and get approvals.
• No follow-up : If there isn’t any follow-up, you’ve just wasted everyone’s time! Follow-through on action items is critical to these strategy meetings making a difference in your organization.
• No valuable discussion : This meeting is not a “show and tell” for everything a department is doing. It is meant to have targeted discussions around key success or problem areas.

Behaviors That Will Derail Your Meeting

People can be as challenging as the process. Don’t allow these few behaviors to get in the way of meeting progress.

• Complexity —don’t allow presenters to get entangled in the details. Keep the conversation at the right level by limiting the agenda and having a facilitator manage what is presented.
• “Siloed” —only present information that is relevant to the strategy for the people in the room. There is no need for a business unit to present information that is not connected to the enterprise strategy.
• Doubting numbers —do not allow any fighting about the numbers. They are what they are. Make it a point to clean up the source for the next meeting, but do not waste time during your current meeting fighting the data. Your meeting isn’t about details—it’s about strategy.
• Forgetfulness —do not tolerate executives ignoring their prep work. Show it as blank and let the CEO or equivalent manage the non-performer. Heap praise on those that are doing great work and contributing. Do everything you can to reward good behavior.

Because ClearPoint was designed specifically to solve the problems that stand in the way of strategy execution, using it will help you avoid most of the mistakes above (with the exception of engaged leadership—there’s not much we can do there!).

ClearPoint :

• Ensures the continuous availability of accurate data. Since ClearPoint can pull data automatically from your various repositories, it makes quick work of gathering the quantitative data your team needs to make decisions. It also helps you get the accompanying qualitative data by sending automated reminders to data owners. Both types of data can be viewed together in ClearPoint for easier decision-making.
• Reduces the manual burden of strategy reporting. We’ve automated 70% of the process, so you can produce reports in a more timely manner—and with fewer man-hours.
• Encourages more productive strategy meetings. Use ClearPoint to create better, more targeted reports. They are easier for participants to understand and follow, and help maintain focus on overall strategy (rather than on operations or individual efforts). It also supports meeting follow-up.
• Provides a balanced view of big-picture organizational goals and measures, projects, and action items. All the data you house in ClearPoint is considered “strategic,” which means it should relate to projects that will help you accomplish your larger goals. The way ClearPoint is set up makes it easy to both keep track of key measures and actions, and how they tie into the big picture.

Don’t just take our word for it—read some of our customer stories to see the positive impact ClearPoint has had on their strategy execution efforts!

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Part 8: important points to remember.

If you want to improve performance in your organization, it all starts with strategy. Strategic objectives are vital to the success of your organization’s future. But, unfortunately, many organizations (nine out of 10 by some estimates) set bold strategic goals and fail to execute.

If you want to increase the odds of success, then you need to have effective and regular strategy review meetings. You’ll need leadership buy-in, and you’ll need to practice some specific steps. There are five stages of holding an effective strategy review meeting: defining the process, meeting preparation, the meeting itself, follow-up, and maintaining momentum.

1. Defining The Process

To ensure successful strategy review meetings, you’ll need to make sure you clearly define the process. This means determining the right meeting attendees and creating a good information-gathering process. Make sure your meetings are timely based on your organization’s goals. Get the team to buy in to the agenda and the outcomes of the meeting. Because these meetings take time and effort, reduce the burden of the leadership team as much as possible so they’re sustainable.

2. Meeting Preparation

3. the meeting.

Encourage candid dialogue and critique in the meeting itself—people tend to want to focus on the positives, but discussing the negatives is critical. Take notes about everything discussed, including action items, so that the meeting is productive. It’s important to use your participants’ time wisely, so don’t be afraid to keep everyone task-oriented. (Use that agenda you created!) In order to stay on track, do a “pulse check” every so often—if your conversation has gotten off-topic or more in-depth than you thought it would, consider saving it for another meeting and moving on.

4. Follow-Up

The meeting can’t be a success without following up afterward to make sure action is taken on the decisions that were made. Distribute the notes you took during the meeting to both the meeting participants and anyone else in the organization who needs them. And set up a process for tracking action items and due dates so things don’t slip through the cracks. Throughout the process, think critically about your measures.

5. Maintaining Momentum

Sustainability is about culture change. You need to generate an understanding of the process and get buy-in—make sure everyone involved understands what the process is and why you’re doing it. (Especially leadership.) Work on continually improving and streamlining your processes in order to reduce the burden on everyone involved; make the procedure for each meeting repeatable.

It is possible to have regularly-scheduled, productive strategy review meetings within your organization. Follow the steps outlined in this guide, and you’ll see what a huge impact it can have on the success of your company!

Maximize Your Strategy Meetings with ClearPoint Strategy Software

Are you ready to lead more effective strategy meetings? ClearPoint Strategy offers the tools you need to streamline your meeting preparation, execution, and follow-up.

Our platform provides real-time data visualization, automated reporting, and seamless collaboration features to ensure your meetings drive actionable results. Don’t just meet—achieve.

Book a demo today and discover how ClearPoint Strategy can transform your strategy meetings into powerful sessions that propel your organization forward.

Book your FREE 1-on-1 DEMO with ClearPoint Strategy

How can i ensure that the right people are in the strategy meeting room.

To ensure that the right people are in the strategy meeting room:

- Identify Key Stakeholders: Include individuals who have a significant impact on strategy development and implementation. - Define Roles and Responsibilities: Clearly outline each participant’s role and contribution to the meeting. - Invite Decision-Makers: Ensure that decision-makers and those with authority are present to facilitate effective decision-making. - Consider Cross-Functional Representation: Include representatives from different departments to provide diverse perspectives. - Communicate Expectations: Brief attendees on their expected contributions and the meeting’s objectives in advance.

What are some ways to keep leadership engaged in strategy meetings?

To keep leadership engaged in strategy meetings:

- Set Clear Objectives: Define the meeting’s goals and expected outcomes beforehand. - Facilitate Active Participation: Encourage leaders to share their insights and actively participate in discussions. - Use Data and Insights: Present relevant data and insights to support strategic discussions and decisions. - Highlight Impact: Emphasize how strategic decisions will impact the organization’s overall goals and success. -Follow Up: Provide regular updates on progress and follow up on action items to maintain engagement.

How can I make sure data is collected and analyzed in a timely manner?

To ensure data is collected and analyzed in a timely manner:

- Establish Clear Processes: Set up standardized processes for data collection and analysis. - Use Technology: Implement data management and analytics tools to streamline data handling. - Assign Responsibilities: Designate specific team members to be responsible for data collection and analysis. - Set Deadlines: Establish clear deadlines for data submission and analysis to ensure timely availability. - Regular Reviews: Conduct regular reviews of data collection and analysis processes to identify and address any bottlenecks.

What are some best practices for creating an agenda for a strategy meeting?

Best practices for creating an agenda for a strategy meeting include:

- Define Objectives: Clearly outline the meeting’s purpose and goals. - Prioritize Topics: Focus on high-priority strategic issues and limit the number of topics to avoid overload. - Allocate Time: Assign specific time slots for each agenda item to ensure a balanced discussion. - Include Preparation Materials: Provide relevant materials and data in advance for participants to review. - Set Action Items: Identify expected outcomes and action items for each agenda point.

How can I avoid getting bogged down in the minutiae of operations during a strategy meeting?

To avoid getting bogged down in the minutiae of operations during a strategy meeting:

- Set Clear Objectives: Focus on strategic goals and objectives rather than operational details. - Create a Focused Agenda: Limit the agenda to high-level strategic topics and avoid operational discussions. - Assign Operational Issues: Delegate operational issues to separate meetings or specific team members. - Use a Facilitator: Have a meeting facilitator to steer discussions back to strategic topics when necessary. - Encourage Strategic Thinking: Promote a culture of strategic thinking by encouraging participants to focus on long-term goals and impacts

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How to hold effective strategic planning meetings

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Holding a strategic planning meeting is a critical step in setting the goals and direction of a team, company, or organization. It's important to plan ahead and make sure that all stakeholders are included in this process.

In this post, we’ll go over the basics of how to facilitate a successful strategic planning meeting, including resources to help you brainstorm, collect and organize feedback and get alignment on action items:

What is strategic planning?

How to facilitate a strategic planning meeting.

• Strategic planning session checklist

Templates for your next strategic planning workshop

Once the agenda, participants, ideas, and outcomes have been established and documented, it is important to review and follow up on the established goals. This can be done through regular meetings, as well as through tracking progress and to ensure that you're achieving your desired outcomes.

Strategic planning is a process that helps an organization or company to set goals, develop strategies, and allocate resources to achieve those goals. It involves setting objectives, determining actions, and evaluating the progress of those actions. Often, these categories can be broken down into 5 concrete steps:

• Define your vision
• Assess where you are
• Determine your priorities and objectives
• Define responsibilities
• Measure and evaluate results

Learn more about each of the above steps in our post on the 5 steps of the strategic planning process .

Strategic planning allows an organization to develop a shared vision for the future and create a roadmap for how to get there. In short, it’s a vital tool for all organizations, whether large or small.

When running a strategic planning meeting, it is important to set an agenda , identify the participants, and ensure that everyone is on the same page about the goals and objectives of the meeting.

Next, run an icebreaker or warmup to get everyone engaged and your ideas flowing — this also helps to ensure that everyone in attendance has a chance to contribute their ideas and perspectives.

Related: Psychological safety: a critical element for imagination work

Once your participants are warmed up and ready to go, it’s time to get into the heart of the meeting. Here again, the goals and objectives determine the best path when facilitating your meeting:

• Brainstorming : Is it a brainstorming session to help determine project goals and OKRs ? If so, what kind of brainstorming approach best fits your topic? For example, it can be useful to start from a template like a vision board when at the outset of a new project.
• Understanding : If you’re looking to drive better cross-functional understanding , use a template like a stakeholder map to see where roles and priorities may overlap, and what working relationships need to be established.
• Evaluating : If you’re in the middle of a project, using a built to help you evaluate your workflows and find ways to improve can ensure that you’re well positioned to deliver on your objectives.
• Empathizing : Are you trying to better empathize with a customer, or look for weak points in a user journey? Using a template for empathy and discovery can be the best way to frame your discussion.

Finally, it is essential to ensure that the outcomes of the meeting are documented and followed up on. With careful planning and preparation, a strategic planning meeting can be a valuable tool for setting the direction of any organization.

Related: 11 top tips for facilitating strategic planning sessions

Strategic planning meeting checklist:

1. Set an agenda for the strategic planning meeting ‍

It is important to set an agenda for the strategic planning meeting to ensure that there is a shared understanding of the goals and objectives of the meeting.

2. Make sure participants are on the same page about the goals and objectives of the meeting ‍

Plan to take a few minutes to get alignment with meeting participants at the outset of a meeting to ensure that everyone is aligned and understands the goals and objectives of the meeting.

3. Begin by going over the agenda and including an icebreaker or warmup exercise

Beginning a meeting with an icebreaker helps to ensure that everyone is engaged and ready to contribute their ideas and perspectives.

4. Set expectations and ground rules

It is important to establish meeting ground rules in order to create an environment of respect and psychological safety, where everyone feels comfortable to contribute their ideas and perspectives.

5. Ensure everyone in attendance has a chance to contribute their ideas and perspectives

Make sure to have a diverse set of ideas and voices participating in your meeting in order to ensure that all perspectives and solutions are taken into consideration.

6. Document the outcomes of the meeting and follow up on them

Having a process for documenting meeting outcomes and following up on any action items is essential for ensuring that your strategic planning meeting is impactful.

When conducting pre-work for your next strategic planning meeting, templates can greatly speed the process of building out your frameworks (as well as helpful in ensuring that you’ve got all the bases covered).

Create a strategy blueprint

The Mural strategy blueprint template is an invaluable tool, crafted to help you brainstorm and analyze six core elements of your strategy. By using this template, you can effectively address your challenges and develop ideas to reach your desired outcome, while exploring your options and trying different alternatives.

It provides a perfect platform to explore multiple solutions, enabling you to pick the one that best suits your needs, while still enabling you to be creative in finding viable solutions. The template offers you an opportunity to think outside the box and develop innovative ideas to tackle your strategy’s most pressing issues. Ultimately, this template allows you to take control of your strategy and create a blueprint for success.

Conduct a SWOT analysis

When assessing where you stand, a SWOT analysis is a great format to brainstorm with your team.

A SWOT analysis is an important exercise where you can evaluate your current situation and better understand the potential opportunities and threats that may arise. It requires you to carefully analyze the internal and external environment in which your initiative or product exists.

• When engaging in a SWOT analysis, you must identify your strengths — what are your unique strengths for this particular initiative or product? In what ways are you a leader? Additionally, you must identify any weaknesses — what weaknesses can you identify in your offering? How does your product compare to others in the marketplace?
• It is also important to identify any opportunities — are there areas for improvement that would help differentiate your business? Finally, you must consider any potential threats — beyond weaknesses, are there existing or potential threats to your initiative that could limit or prevent its success? How can those be anticipated?

By engaging in a thorough and thoughtful SWOT analysis, you can gain valuable insight into the potential success of your initiative or product and be better prepared to respond to any obstacles that may arise.

It’s time for kickoff!

To realize your vision, prioritize and outline specific objectives to achieve your goals. Once you have defined your vision and assessed your current situation, you can begin outlining and ranking your priorities and the objectives associated with them.

Use the Mural project kickoff template to capture everything up front, and give you an easy, shared reference point to return to as you analyze outcomes.

Strategic planning is a process that helps an organization or company to set goals, develop strategies, and allocate resources to achieve those goals. It involves setting objectives, determining actions, and evaluating the progress of those actions.

This post outlines the basics of how to facilitate a successful strategic planning meeting, including resources to help you brainstorm, collect and organize feedback, and get alignment on action items. But

Get started today with a Mural Free Forever account , and use any of our hundreds of (free and editable) templates to make your next strategic planning meeting more engaging and impactful.

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Are you looking to make your meeting agendas even more effective? Check out one of these free templates!

Creating the most effective meeting agenda is an art. And once the company or a specific team finds an ideal template, getting everyone to follow the proposed agenda format is challenging.  Meetings are more productive when there’s structure and all attendees know what to expect. The key to use this time efficiently is to ensure it’s planned well. Factors like setting a purpose for the meeting, deciding on discussion topics, and inviting appropriate attendees are all keys to success. But having one collaborative place to plan and document those factors is also important—and that’s where a meeting agenda template comes into play.

What is a meeting agenda?

• Why does every meeting need a meeting agenda?
• Who owns the agenda?
• What should be included in the meeting agenda?

10 tips for creating an effective meeting agenda

• Why your agenda needs iteration and experimentation
• 18 free meeting agenda examples and templates

The best tool for meeting agendas: Fellow

A meeting agenda is a document that organizes the talking points for an upcoming call. You can create a meeting agenda with pen and paper or, for easier sharing and collaboration with colleagues, you can make a virtual one, too. Meeting agendas are typically created by the organizer of the meeting and then shared with participants at least one business day in advance. Since everyone on the call has access to the document, it becomes a central place to track the meeting’s purpose, plans, and outcomes. It can even be useful and added to during the call as well! 

Run efficient meetings, come to a decision, and get back to work

Level up your meeting habits to boost engagement and productivity with a collaborative meeting agenda. Try a tool like Fellow!

Why meeting agendas are core to effective teams

Meetings are so important for effective collaboration, decision making, and brainstorming . But without some form of structure, participants in these calls may not know how to jump into a discussion or in what order they should approach topics. This leaves a lot of room for ambiguity and risks the meeting going off topic or over time. Instead, meeting agendas provide a clear structure for what to talk about, who is responsible for each point, and how much time is allocated to discuss each topic. 

On the topic of the importance of meeting agendas, Roger Schwarz from the Harvard Business Review says,

“An effective agenda sets clear expectations for what needs to occur before and during a meeting. It helps team members prepare, allocates time wisely, quickly gets everyone on the same topic, and identifies when the discussion is complete. If problems still occur during the meeting, a well-designed agenda increases the team’s ability to effectively and quickly address them.”

Who owns the agenda of a team meeting?

Alright, now that you know why having a meeting agenda is so crucial, you might be wondering: who’s in charge of creating one?

The owner of the meeting agenda is the meeting organizer. It’s up to this person (or a team of people) to create the template, but remember that it’s everyone’s responsibility to add talking points and various action items that need to be discussed. 

If only the manager takes the time to add talking points, it will only be the manager talking. Not only is this not productive or a good use of everyone’s time, but chances are also good there will be some yawns from meeting attendees. 

How to structure a meeting agenda: 9 sections to consider

If you’re the meeting organizer and it’s up to you to create the agenda, here are some must-haves that you’ll need to include to make the meeting agenda as comprehensive as possible:

• Title of the meeting: Clearly state the purpose or main topic
• Date, time, and duration: Specify when the meeting will start and end
• Main objective: Briefly describe the main goal of the meeting
• Talking points: Break down the meeting into specific topics or segments
• Supporting documents: List any reports, data, or other materials attendees should bring or review beforehand
• Decisions: A segment to determine what decisions were made or not made
• Action items: Assign and document what actions need to be taken post-meeting
• Follow up: If it is a recurring meeting, confirm if it is necessary to meet again or confirm the next meeting date and time
• Feedback: Provide a way for attendees to give feedback on the meeting for continuous improvement

How in-depth you go into each of these components will vary depending on the type of meeting you’re holding, but the agenda should cover these elements throughout. Remember, the agenda should be distributed in advance to give attendees enough time to prepare.

• State the meeting purpose and objectives
• Incorporate AI for agenda optimization
• Prompt attendees to add talking points
• Attach relevant material
• Assign facilitators for each topic
• Allocate time for each section
• Prioritize talking points strategically
• Add a section for action items
• Leave a section for questions
• Automatically share the agenda with meeting attendees

1 State the meeting purpose and objectives

Every agenda for a meeting should outline a clear purpose—this is known as your meeting purpose statement . It’s for helping the rest of your invited group of participants understand what the call’s goal is! Including this meeting purpose statement in your meeting invitation is also important as it allows attendees to quickly identify if the meeting is relevant to them or not. If you’re using a meeting management tool like Fellow, you can embed the purpose statement directly into every invite so you don’t forget! 

Fellow helps ensure every meeting has a clear purpose. With the Meeting Guidelines feature set, when a meeting is being created, meeting organizers are prompted to add a meeting purpose to the description of the meeting, to help boost meeting engagement.

2 Incorporate AI for agenda optimization

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools have come a long way in automating work! When incorporated into meeting planning , AI tools can help optimize your agenda by recommending new topics, sorting the order of talking points, and transcribing the notes at the end of your call. When you leverage AI to take care of some of these challenging or mundane administrative tasks, you’ll grant yourself more time to focus on other growth drivers for your team! 

3 Prompt attendees to add talking points

It can be difficult to find innovative ways to get your participants more involved in meetings. But you don’t actually have to go that far out of the box to find successful virtual engagement strategies in your team calls. One simple prompt is to request that team members add their own talking points to the meeting agenda. You can add talking points as questions that they need to answer, such as, “What are some blockers that you need help overcoming this week?” This will spark collaboration and ensure that the meeting topics are highly relevant to your team’s needs. 

4 Attach relevant material 

Any documents that will be discussed during the meeting should be linked directly to the meeting agenda. Not only does this help your attendees review content ahead of time to come prepared for the call, but it also allows you to quickly pull up the necessary documents mid- meeting to discuss them with the group. 

Pro Tip: Using Fellow, create an action item with multiple assignees at the top of the agenda prompting people to check off the task as they read the material before the meeting! 

5 Assign facilitators for each topic

Facilitators are the people who are responsible for each section. They might be doing a presentation on that topic, moderating the conversation, or just ensuring that the discussion doesn’t go off the rails or over the allocated time limit. A helpful way to quickly coordinate and assign facilitators for each topic is through Fellow’s Sections automation . A feature like this makes it easy to visually identify whose section is coming up next and what topics will be presented by that person.

6 Allocate time for each section

When people show up late or have technology issues, your meeting will be at risk of going over time. This can trigger the rest of everyone’s schedules to be delayed for the day, which isn’t an effective use of time. To avoid this, have at least five minutes at the start of the call for set-up and icebreakers . Then, allocate time for every other section and add this to your agenda. Knowing how much time is dedicated to each topic will help your facilitators plan their segments. In case you have guest speakers jumping into the meeting at a specific point, having a predetermined timetable will also help them know when to connect. 

7 Prioritize talking points strategically

A recent study showed that social relationships in the workplace can actually become strained by too many meetings and meetings that aren’t organized effectively. As a solution, the study suggests organizing meeting talking points so that there is a small amount of time for social conversation before jumping into the business talk. This allows attendees to ease into the conversation and feel more heard at work. 

From there, try to organize the meeting agenda so that it covers foundational topics that are necessary for contextualizing other topics later in the meeting. Then, the next topics should be the ones that are high priority and need to be discussed first in case you run out of time. 

8 Add a section for action items

Action items are essentially the to-do’s following each meeting. The agenda for a meeting should contain a spot for listing these action items as they are decided throughout the call. You’ll also want to make sure there is always a person assigned to complete the action item and a due date, as having these will improve accountability in getting it done! 

9 Leave a section for questions

At the end of your meeting agenda, have a spot for any questions. Of course, questions can be asked and answered throughout the meeting if you prefer, but some meeting types—like a town hall —might have a presentation that can’t be interrupted. So, leaving 10-15 minutes at the end of each presentation is a great way to avoid interruptions in key sessions while also ensuring that employees’ concerns are heard. 

10 Automatically share the agenda with meeting attendees

Making sure that your attendees actually receive the agenda for a meeting is important! Without it, they’ll be just as lost when the meeting time comes as if you didn’t build the agenda at all. Automating the distribution of the agenda is a way to save time and take another thing to remember off of your to-do list! Try to share the meeting agenda with your meeting attendees at least one business day in advance so that they can review the necessary materials, add talking points, and ask any pre-meeting questions they might have. 

Why your agenda needs iteration and experimentation 

Remember what we said about your meeting agenda being a living, breathing document?

We stand by this statement, but even so, you shouldn’t be afraid to throw it in the trash and start new.

No meeting agenda is perfect, and no matter the size of your company or the industry it’s in, things change. The agenda that worked in Q1 may no longer be a perfect fit come Q3. 

Just like you need to consider “Do I actually need this meeting?” every so often, you need to reflect on your agendas the same way. Don’t be afraid to roll up your sleeves, iterate, and improve on your agenda from time to time to reach maximum meeting productivity. 

18 free meeting agenda examples and templates 

1 weekly team meetings.

1 💡Updates (5 min)

Outline news and updates.

2 📈 Big picture (5min) 📈

Discuss where are we relative to our goals.

3 📌 Priorities (20 min)

Determine everyone’s focus for the week.

4 🚧 Roadblocks (5 min)

Discuss any challenges or concerns?

5 📣 Shoutouts (5 min)

Celebrate any recent wins or successes.

6 ✅ Action items (5 min)

What came out of this meeting?

2 Remote team meeting

1 ❄️ icebreakers .

Team bonding activities/Questions to get to know each other. 

2 🚀 Updates

News and announcements.

3 🖼 Big picture

Where are we relative to our goals?

4 📌 Priorities

What will everyone’s main focus be this week?

5 ⛔️ Roadblocks

Discuss any challenges or concerns.

6 📣 Shoutouts

7 ✅ action items (5 min), 3 company-wide townhall meetings, business updates.

Metrics and overall progress towards our goals

Wins and shoutouts

Achievements, positive results, good news – and the people behind them.

Team Spotlight

Presentations about new projects, features, or insights.

Ask Me Anything session. Add your questions here:

Upcoming initiatives and deadlines.

4 Board meeting minutes

1 nature of the meeting.

Note the meeting type, date and time.

2 Attendees

Note the attendees in the meeting

3 Previous meeting 

Note the meeting minutes or notes from the last board meeting. 

Note action items that were discussed in the meeting. 

5 Solutions/Next Steps

Note any solutions or next steps discussed.

6 Documentation

Note any documentation or materials that were presented or needed for this meeting.

5 Leadership team meetings

1 check in (5 min).

Share a personal and professional accomplishment in the past week

2 Scorecard (5min) 📈

Update your weekly scorecard or metrics (1-5 max). Add issues to the list. 

3 Rock review (5min)

Is your assigned major 90-day goal (rock) on or off track? Add issues to the list. 

4 Customer/employee headlines (5 min)

Share client and employee feedback with one sentence, indicating good or bad. Add issues to the list. 

5 To-do list (5 min)

Are last week’s action items done, not done, or in progress? Add issues to the list.

6 IDS (Identify, Discuss, Solve) (60 min)

Start by prioritizing all of the issues and use IDS. Identify action items that can resolve the problems.

7 Conclude (5mins)

Recap your to-do list and identify the next steps from the meeting.

6 Performance review meeting

1 accomplishments.

Discuss how things are going since our last performance review.

2 Impact 

Discuss your impact on the company this year.

3 Goals 

List some goals for the year to come.

4 Review prior goals

If goals were set the previous year, make sure to review them!

Provide feedback for areas of improvement.

6 Growth 

Discuss your growth this year and anything that helped you grow professionally.

7 Non-Work Related Contributions 

Community events, meet-ups, and/or impactful contributions you were a part of this year.

8 Action items

What came out of this meeting? What are the next steps?

7 One-on-one meetings

1 what’s top of mind.

Things we should talk about

2 Things that went well this week

Recent wins and positive news

3 Learnings

Things we learned or could’ve done differently

4 Priorities, since we last, met

Top things we’ve focused on in the last couple of days

5 Priorities until we meet again

Top things we’re focusing on, from now until the next time we meet

6 Challenges 

Roadblocks/convers – and ways we can work them out

Recognition and suggestions for improvement

8 Peer meeting agenda

1 🚀 projects.

What projects are you working on? Are there any cross-over or collaboration opportunities?

2 💪 Teamwork

How can we help each other?

3 💬 Feedback

What feedback can we take back to our teams to work best together moving forward?

4 ✅ Action items (5 min)

9 project kickoff meeting, 1 background.

High-level overview/summary of the project.

What is the project’s mission statement? What are we aiming to accomplish?

Get into the scope details: specific activities, deliverables and timelines.

4 Timeline 

Build a roadmap: from project kick-off to completions.

Discuss and visualize project roles and assignments.

6 Questions

Clarify misunderstandings and address other important items/concerns.

7 Action items 

What came out of this meeting? What are your next steps?

10 Sales team weekly kickoff

1 💬 talking points [20mins].

Roundtable check-in.

2 🏆 Wins From Last Week [5 min]

Deals, calls or things you accomplished and are proud of from the week prior.

3 🎯 Priorities for the Week [15 min]

Include a subheader for each sales rep to include their own upcoming priorities.

4 📊 Metrics From Last Week [async]

Let’s track our KPIs week-over-week and discuss them if needed.

5 ✅ Action items 

11 daily leadership huddle template, 1 📌 priorities.

Top priority activities for each leader.

2 ⛔️ Issues

Is your team stuck or blocked? How can we help?

3 💡 Learnings

Any new insights that may benefit other teams?

12 Weekly Executive Calendar Review Meeting Template

1 🔴 conflicting meetings.

What meetings are conflicting this week? When is the executive double booked? Which meetings should we prioritize attending?

2 💪 Meeting preparation

What meetings this week require pre-meeting briefing and preparation?

3 📄 Documentation

Review the relevant documentation in preparation for upcoming meetings.

What are your work priorities this week? How are you spending your time?

5 ✅ Action items

13 monthly management meeting agenda template, 1 📚 education.

Five-minute education slots by three different directors.

2 💡 Updates 

An update from each director on their goals and what the pipeline is looking like for the next 30-60 days.

3 📣 Announcements 

Key events and points to note.

14 Sales Team Meeting

1 metrics review.

Quick overview of our core weekly metrics.

2 Pipeline updates

Discuss new and high-priority opportunities.

Share recent triumphs, deals, and positive news.

4 Roadblocks

What’s currently preventing your deals from moving towards the close?

5 Action items

15 weekly scrum meeting template, 1 💪 progress.

Review all of the stories or tasks moved to the “demo” or “done” stage.

2 🚦Slowed down

Share tasks that have not made the progress you were expecting.

3 🚫 Stopped

Share tasks that we have stopped working on.

16 Engineering Manager One-on-One Meeting Template

1 💪 team’s output.

Discuss the team’s current output.

2 ⛔️ Challenges

Discuss any challenges that you are currently facing.

3 ⭐️ Opportunities

Discuss current opportunities.

4 ❓ Room for improvement

Shared feedback and discussed any potential improvements.

5 📄 Specific files

Are there any specific files you’d like to discuss?

6 ✅ Action items

17 performance improvement plan, 1 ❓areas of concern.

Discuss matters and areas of concern that needs to be looked into and improved within HR. 

2 💡 Observations and notes from previous discussions

Discuss what had been spoken about in the previous meeting and any notes that had been taken.

3 🚀 Improvement goals

Create a list of goals that will assist you in achieving each aim.

4 ⚽ Activity goals

Create goals below that can be used to complete your Improvement goals (for example, other people’s time or expertise, finances for training materials and activities, or time away from your regular tasks).

5 📚 Resources

Created a resource list that can be used to complete your Improvement goals (for example, other people’s time or expertise, finances for training materials and activities, or time away from your regular tasks).

6 💪 Management support

Discuss hoe management can assist and support in improvement and all the goals set.

7 ❗Expectations

Create a set of expectations that will demonstrate progress in achieving each Improvement goal, the following performance standards must be met. 

8 ✔️ Progress checkpoints

Create a schedule to be used to assess your progress toward completing your Improvement goals.

18 Employee Retention Meeting Template

1 healthy work environment.

Discuss the policies in place to promote a healthy work environment.

2 Rewards and recognition

Discuss the policies in place for rewards and recognition.

3 Flexibility

Discuss the policies in place for employee flexibility.

4 Growth and development

Discuss the policies in place that promote growth and development.

5 Healthy leadership relationships

Discuss the policies in place that promote healthy leadership relationships.

6 Competitive compensation

Discuss the policies in place for competitive compensation.

7 Improvements

After discussing each employee retention factor, where can we improve?

Fellow is an AI-assisted meeting management tool that helps teams collaborate online more effectively. Some of the latest AI features include the ability to automatically organize your facilitators’ sections, transcribe meeting notes, generate meeting summaries, and even recommend new talking points in an agenda builder (which is super helpful when you come up against a brick wall). 

Ahead of your meeting, you can access Fellow’s library of 500+ meeting agenda templates , review guidelines on how to make your call more effective, and automatically distribute the agenda to your team. 

During the call, the software integrates easily into your video conferencing platform of choice so you can see the agenda, documentation, meeting notes, and action items all from within one window! After the call, you can share an AI-generated summary or feedback survey back to your participants to optimize your next meeting. 

Parting advice

Meeting agendas have a lot of benefits. They help organize you and your team, they provide a centralized place for accessing information, and they’ll continue to evolve as your team grows! Also, the best part about meeting agendas is that they’re customizable to different needs. Depending on the type of meeting that you’re running, you can opt for more formal or informal agendas that hit on different talking points. Feel free to test a few different options using our meeting agenda examples and templates and explore what works best for your team! 

The art of one-on-one meetings for business leaders and managers 36 min read

Cross-Functional Meetings: Best Practices to Get Them Right 6 min read

Staff Meeting Agenda Blueprint: Best Practices and Checklist 8 min read

See how leaders in 100+ countries are making meetings more productive and delightful.

Say goodbye to unproductive meetings. Fellow helps your team build great meeting habits through collaborative agendas, real-time notetaking, and time-saving templates.

End every meeting knowing who is doing what by when. Assign, organize, and prioritize all your meeting action items in one place.

Give and get feedback as work happens. Request and track real-time feedback on meetings, recent projects, and performance.

Effective Meetings: A Checklist to Planning Meeting Agenda

Learn all you need to about planning effective meetings. Get an overview of planning meeting agendas and having a proper meeting structure.

What are the key components of an effective meeting?

Effective meeting structure.

An effective meeting structure is a cornerstone of productive collaboration. It involves a well-thought-out plan, ensuring that every meeting serves a clear purpose and reaches its intended outcomes. The key is to avoid a one-size-fits-all approach; instead, tailor the structure to the type of meeting, whether it's a brainstorming session, a decision-making forum, or a status update.

A well-defined structure helps save time by keeping discussions on track and minimizing the tendency to veer off-topic. Planning an effective meeting requires a checklist of components: setting a clear agenda, determining the meeting's purpose, allocating time slots for each topic, and designating specific roles like a moderator or note-taker. This structure serves as a template that can be adapted to different contexts, ensuring that each meeting is as efficient and productive as possible.

Importance of a meeting agenda

A meeting agenda is more than a list of topics; it's the blueprint for a successful and effective meeting. It outlines the key points to be discussed, helps in assigning clear objectives to each segment, and sets the tone for the entire session. An effective agenda is circulated in advance, giving attendees the opportunity to prepare, thus enhancing the quality of the discussion.

It should include a brief description of each item, the time allotted, and the person responsible for leading the discussion. A well-planned agenda ensures that important issues are addressed, helps prevent the waste of time on irrelevant topics, and provides a clear path to follow. At the end of the meeting, revisiting the agenda can help assess whether all points were covered and assist in planning the next meeting.

Meeting structure to save time

In today's fast-paced business environment, the ability to save time during meetings is invaluable. A time-efficient meeting structure is key to achieving this. It starts with a clear, concise agenda that outlines the purpose of the meeting and the topics to be discussed. Time-saving strategies include setting a strict time limit for the entire meeting and individual agenda items, and ensuring a focused discussion.

This structure might also involve limiting the number of attendees to those essential for the meeting's objectives, thereby streamlining the decision-making process. Additionally, employing technology for quick sharing of information and for remote participation can further enhance time efficiency. Every meeting should end with a summary of decisions and action items, ensuring that the time spent in the meeting translates into tangible outcomes.

Assigning clear meeting objectives

Assigning clear objectives for each meeting is crucial in planning an effective meeting. Clear objectives provide a sense of direction and purpose, ensuring that every participant understands the goals of the meeting. This practice helps in avoiding confusion and keeps the discussion focused, ultimately leading to more productive outcomes. Objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).

They should be communicated beforehand, included in the meeting agenda, and revisited at the beginning and end of the meeting. This clarity helps in maintaining the structure of the meeting, aids in tracking progress, and is essential for evaluating the meeting's effectiveness afterward. Clear objectives also assist in determining the necessary participants, the type of meeting to be conducted, and the resources required, all of which are vital components of meeting planning.

Productive meeting attendees

The productivity of a meeting significantly depends on its attendees. Productive meeting attendees are those who are directly relevant to the meeting's objectives. When planning a meeting, it’s important to consider who needs to be there to make decisions, provide information, or carry out actions following the meeting. Attendees should come prepared, having reviewed the meeting agenda and any necessary background materials.

During the meeting, effective participation includes staying on topic, respecting time limits, and contributing constructively to the discussion. Attendees should also be willing to take on responsibilities and follow through with assigned tasks after the meeting. In every meeting, the collective goal should be to contribute positively towards achieving the meeting’s objectives, thus ensuring that the time spent is valuable and not wasted.

How to plan a meeting with a structured approach?

Planning a meeting with a structured approach involves a methodical process, ensuring that the meeting is effective and productive. As a meeting planner, begin by clearly defining the meeting's purpose: what you aim to achieve, whether it's to make decisions, solve problems, or brainstorm ideas. This clarity sets the tone for the meeting and guides all subsequent planning steps. Next, consider the meeting structure, which includes deciding the duration, format, and participant roles.

Address logistical aspects like time zones, especially for virtual teams, ensuring that the meeting time suits all attendees. This structured approach not only helps in organizing the meeting but also respects the time available to team members, thereby enhancing the meeting’s efficiency. Remember, a well-structured meeting is a key to achieving goals and objectives, making it an essential part of the planning process.

Creating a detailed meeting agenda

Creating a detailed meeting agenda is a crucial step in the meeting planning process. This agenda serves as a roadmap, guiding the flow of the meeting and ensuring that all necessary topics are covered. Start by listing all items that need to be addressed, assigning a specific time slot to each. This helps keep the meeting on time and focused.

The agenda should be shared with attendees beforehand, giving them time to prepare and consider whether they need to add any items. This proactive approach makes the meeting more effective, as it allows attendees to come to the meeting prepared to contribute meaningfully. The agenda can also include a segment for setting the date for the next meeting, ensuring continuity and follow-through. Overall, a well-crafted agenda is instrumental in driving meeting success and keeping everyone aligned with the meeting's objectives.

Implementing a checklist for meeting planning

Implementing a checklist for meeting planning is a strategic way to ensure that every aspect of the meeting is considered and addressed. This checklist can be used to create a comprehensive plan that covers everything from the initial concept of the meeting to its execution. Key items on the checklist should include defining the purpose of the meeting, selecting an appropriate meeting structure, arranging the necessary technology or resources, and coordinating with attendees.

Considerations for different time zones should also be included if team members are dispersed geographically. A checklist helps the meeting planner stay organized and ensures that nothing is overlooked, from sending out invitations to preparing a detailed agenda. By using a checklist, meetings can serve many functions more effectively, whether they are regular team updates or critical project meetings.

Defining the purpose of the meeting

Defining the purpose of the meeting is an essential first step in the planning process. A clearly defined purpose acts as the foundation upon which the entire meeting is built. It helps in determining the type of meeting to be conducted, whether it's for decision-making, brainstorming, or updating team members on progress.

The meeting's purpose should be specific and concise, providing a clear understanding of what the meeting aims to achieve. This clarity assists in setting the right expectations for attendees, helping them prepare accordingly. It also guides the meeting leader in structuring the agenda and focusing the discussion on relevant topics. A meeting with a well-defined purpose tends to be more focused and productive, as it aligns all participants towards a common goal, ensuring that the meeting addresses the intended topics efficiently.

Setting a clear meeting structure

Setting a clear meeting structure is pivotal in ensuring the effectiveness of a meeting. A structured meeting involves a well-thought-out agenda, a defined start and end time, designated roles for participants, and a clear format for discussion. This structure helps in managing the time available efficiently, allowing for all agenda items to be addressed without rushing or overextending the meeting. It also provides a framework within which attendees can contribute effectively.

The structure should be communicated to all attendees beforehand, so they understand what to expect and how to prepare. This preparation is particularly important for meetings that involve participants across different time zones, as it gives them time to align with the schedule. A clear structure is not just about maintaining order; it's about fostering an environment where productive discussions can take place, and actionable decisions can be made.

Preparing for time zones and meeting need

When planning a meeting, especially with attendees spread across different time zones, it's crucial to be considerate of everyone's time. Preparing for time zones involves selecting a meeting time that is reasonable for all participants. This may mean compromising on the ideal time to accommodate those in vastly different time zones. The meeting need, or the reason for the meeting, should justify this coordination effort.

If the meeting is to address critical issues or make important decisions, then ensuring maximum attendance becomes even more important. Tools and technology can assist in finding suitable times. Also, rotating meeting times for recurring meetings can demonstrate fairness to team members who otherwise would always have to attend meetings at inconvenient times. This consideration not only shows respect for attendees' time but also contributes to a productive meeting environment.

What steps should be followed to plan an effective meeting?

Reviewing the outcomes of the next meeting.

Reviewing the outcomes of the next meeting in advance is a proactive step in meeting planning. This involves anticipating the results you wish to achieve by the end of the meeting. By envisioning these outcomes, you can structure the meeting in a way that directs all efforts towards these goals. This foresight helps in creating an agenda that is focused and relevant. It also aids in identifying the key attendees whose presence is crucial for achieving these outcomes.

This review process ensures that the meeting stays on track and that discussions are aligned with the predefined objectives. Additionally, by setting clear expectations for the meeting's outcomes, it becomes easier to evaluate the meeting's success and to plan subsequent steps. This approach not only makes the current meeting more effective but also sets the stage for future meetings to be productive.

Planning an effective meeting template

Planning an effective meeting involves creating a template that can be adapted to various types of meetings. This template serves as a guideline, ensuring consistency and efficiency in how meetings are conducted. Essential elements of this template include a clear agenda, defined objectives, a list of attendees, time allocations for each agenda item, and any necessary background materials.

The template should also consider logistical aspects such as the meeting platform (in-person or virtual), necessary technology, and accommodations for different time zones if applicable. A well-designed meeting template simplifies the planning process and can be used repeatedly, saving time and effort in organizing meetings. Moreover, a consistent template helps team members know what to expect from meetings, contributing to a more focused and engaged participation.

Setting clear meeting objectives

Setting clear meeting objectives is a critical step in ensuring that a meeting is purposeful and productive. These objectives provide a clear direction for the meeting and help in keeping the discussion focused on achieving specific outcomes. Objectives should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. They should be clearly communicated to attendees beforehand, allowing them to prepare appropriately.

Clear objectives also assist the meeting leader in guiding the discussion effectively and making the most of the time available. They help in evaluating the success of the meeting afterward, based on whether these objectives were met. Setting and adhering to clear objectives ensures that meetings are not just routine gatherings but purposeful sessions that drive action and decisions.

Incorporating a well-defined meeting structure

Incorporating a well-defined meeting structure is essential for the smooth functioning of any meeting. This structure includes a clear agenda, designated roles for attendees (such as facilitator, note-taker, timekeeper), and a defined sequence for discussing agenda items. A well-defined structure helps in managing the flow of the meeting, ensuring that all topics are covered systematically without deviation.

It aids in keeping the meeting within the scheduled time, respecting everyone’s time constraints. This structure is particularly important in meetings that involve complex topics or a large number of participants, as it helps maintain order and focus. A structured approach to meetings ensures that they are not only productive but also conducive to effective decision-making and problem-solving.

Ensuring a productive meeting for all attendees

Ensuring a productive meeting for all attendees is about more than just having a well-planned agenda; it's about creating an environment where everyone can contribute effectively. This involves making sure that all attendees are clear on the meeting's purpose and objectives. Provide all necessary information and materials beforehand, allowing them to come prepared. During the meeting, encourage active participation, giving everyone a chance to voice their opinions and ideas.

Be mindful of the meeting dynamics, ensuring that discussions remain inclusive and respectful. Additionally, consider the needs of all attendees, such as arranging for accessibility accommodations if needed or considering time zone differences in scheduling. A productive meeting is one where everyone leaves feeling that their time was well spent, with clear next steps and a sense of accomplishment.

Photo by Jason Goodman on Unsplash

What are the different types of meetings and their planning requirements?

Planning for different types of meetings (e.g., virtual, in-person).

Planning for different types of meetings, such as virtual and in-person, requires a tailored approach to ensure they are productive and efficient. For in-person meetings, the focus is on choosing the right venue, arranging necessary logistics, and ensuring that the right people are in the room for effective problem-solving or team building.

Virtual meetings demand technical setup, ensuring all participants have the necessary software and hardware, and considering time zones for global teams. Both formats require clear communication of the meeting's purpose, agenda, and expected outcomes. A shared understanding of the topics that need to be addressed is crucial. Planning well in advance allows for addressing any potential issues, ensuring that no time is wasted and that everything needed for a successful meeting is in place.

Creating a meeting template for various meeting formats

Creating a meeting template for various formats – whether virtual, in-person, or hybrid – is essential for maintaining consistency and efficiency. A versatile template should include key elements such as the meeting's purpose, agenda items, time allocations, participant roles, and logistical details. For each format, adapt the template to suit specific needs: virtual meetings might include instructions for software use, while in-person meetings could list venue details.

This template acts as a calculator, helping to estimate the time required for each agenda item and ensuring that nothing gets accomplished. Having a standardized template helps accelerate meeting preparation, letting participants know what to expect and prepare for, leading to more focused and effective discussions.

Considering time zones for global meetings

When planning global meetings, considering different time zones is crucial to ensure that all participants can attend without inconvenience. The last thing you want is to schedule a meeting at a time that's impractical for part of the team. Use a global time zone calculator to find a time that works best for everyone, or consider rotating meeting times to share the inconvenience equitably.

This consideration shows respect for all team members and increases the likelihood of productive participation. Additionally, provide a clear agenda in advance so that participants, regardless of their time zone, have everything they need to prepare and engage effectively in the meeting.

Addressing the specific needs of each meeting type

Each type of meeting – be it for brainstorming, decision-making, problem-solving, or team building – has specific requirements that need to be addressed for it to be effective. For brainstorming sessions, create an open, creative environment; for decision-making meetings, ensure the right people are in the room with the necessary information.

Build your participant list thoughtfully, thinking through who would be beneficial in the room for each meeting's specific purpose. Ensure you have all the tools and materials necessary, and prepare a list of questions or discussion points to guide the conversation. Addressing these specific needs ensures that every meeting is targeted, relevant, and productive, avoiding situations where nothing gets accomplished.

Conducting productive meetings that make an impact

To conduct productive meetings that make an impact, always start with a clear purpose and a well-defined agenda. Ensure the meeting addresses the topics that need discussion and include activities or discussion points that advance the project's or organization’s goals. During the meeting, facilitate focused discussion, keeping participants on track and encouraging contributions from all attendees.

Ensure that the meeting environment, whether virtual or in-person, is conducive to engagement and collaboration. A productive meeting is one where every participant leaves with a sense of accomplishment and a clear understanding of the next steps, ensuring that the meeting contributes positively to the working world of the team or organization.

How to effectively wrap up a meeting and plan for the next steps?

Effectively wrapping up a meeting involves summarizing key points, defining next steps, and assigning clear action items with deadlines. As the meeting concludes, revisit the agenda to ensure all topics have been addressed and ask participants for any final thoughts or contributions. Clearly outline the actions to take following the meeting, making sure each task has an assigned owner and a deadline.

This helps in ensuring that the meeting's outcomes are acted upon, and nothing gets lost in the shuffle. Set the date for the next meeting well in advance, providing participants ample time to prepare. This structured approach to concluding a meeting leaves everyone with a clear understanding of what was accomplished and what needs to happen next, making the most of the time spent together and avoiding any ambiguity.

Defining the next steps and assigning clear action items

Defining the next steps and assigning clear action items at the end of a meeting is critical to ensuring that the meeting translates into tangible results. Each action item should be specific, with a clear description of what needs to be done, who is responsible, and the deadline for completion. This clarity accelerates progress and keeps team members accountable.

Before the meeting ends, confirm that each attendee understands their responsibilities and the expected outcomes. This process ensures that everyone leaves the meeting with a clear idea of their next steps, preventing misunderstandings and ensuring that the meeting's goals are achieved efficiently.

Setting the date for the next meeting in advance

Setting the date for the next meeting in advance is a key step in maintaining momentum and continuity. Determine the next meeting's date well in advance, considering participants' availability and the timeline for completing action items. By scheduling the next meeting at the end of the current one, you ensure that it becomes a part of everyone’s calendar, reducing the likelihood of conflicts or scheduling issues later on. This proactive approach helps keep the project or discussion on track, ensuring regular check-ins and steady progress.

Ensuring everyone leaves the meeting with actionable takeaways

To ensure that everyone leaves the meeting with actionable takeaways, summarize the key discussion points and decisions made during the meeting. Highlight the assigned action items and their deadlines, ensuring clarity on what is expected from each participant. This approach not only reinforces the meeting’s outcomes but also provides a clear path forward for the team.

Providing a written summary or minutes after the meeting can also be helpful, serving as a reference point and ensuring that no critical information is forgotten or misunderstood. This strategy enhances the meeting's productivity, ensuring that time spent in the meeting translates into concrete actions and progress.

Preparing for the meeting beforehand to address potential challenges

Preparing for a meeting beforehand is crucial to address potential challenges and ensure a productive session. This preparation involves more than just setting an agenda; it includes anticipating possible questions, objections, or technical issues that could arise. If you’re the meeting leader, familiarize yourself with the topics that need discussion, and think through various scenarios that might occur.

This foresight allows you to guide the meeting effectively, keeping it on track and focused. Preparation also involves ensuring that all necessary materials, tools, or technologies are ready and functioning. This level of readiness demonstrates professionalism and respect for participants' time, contributing to a meeting that’s both productive and efficient.

Wrapping up the meeting without wasting time

Wrapping up a meeting without wasting time requires focus and efficiency. As the meeting draws to a close, quickly revisit the key points discussed and the decisions made. Clearly state the action items and their respective owners, ensuring everyone understands their responsibilities.

Avoid lengthy discussions at this stage; instead, encourage any further thoughts or questions to be communicated after the meeting. By keeping the conclusion concise and focused, you respect participants' time and ensure that the meeting ends on a productive note. This approach also sets a precedent for future meetings, establishing a culture of efficiency and effectiveness within the team or organization.

Introducing Dive: The Perfect AI Companion for 2023

Dive is your ultimate AI assistant for supercharging your meetings. Dive seamlessly integrates with popular video conferencing platforms, revolutionizing your meeting experience. 

With automated task allocation, real-time transcription , and insightful analytics, Dive ensures your meetings are efficient, engaging, and result-driven. Elevate collaboration and productivity with Dive and make every meeting count.

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August 26, 2024

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We’ve all been a part of team meetings where most participants are clueless about the purpose of the meeting, and the speakers steer the discussion off-track. 

What follows is a true catastrophe. 

You’d find your team clocking in many unproductive hours because of the ‘said meeting’ without achieving any objective.

Good news! 

A meeting agenda can help you avoid this and be the answer to all your woes. ✌

An effective meeting agenda is a plan you share with your meeting participants. It’ll help your team set clear expectations of what needs to happen before, during, and after the meeting. 

In this article, we’ll discuss what a meeting agenda is and learn the five key steps involved in writing one. We’ll also look at 16 meeting agenda template options and explore the reasons why your entire team needs a meeting agenda. 

Benefits of an Effective Meeting Agenda

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If you’re more of a visual learner check out this vlog on meeting agendas!

Let’s get started.

Sitting through a meeting that doesn’t have an agenda is pretty similar to setting out on a treasure hunt without a map. 

A meeting agenda allows your team to set the meeting’s cadence , prepare for the meeting topic, ensure that everyone is on the same page, and keep them on track to hit their objectives. 

Meeting agendas:

• Give the meeting a clear purpose
• Help you stay on track
• Help define responsibilities

It consists of a list of topics, action items , and activities you want to discuss during the meeting. 

A simple meeting agenda could be a short bulleted list. More detailed agendas include descriptions for each agenda item, reference material, and expected outcomes for each discussion topic. 

Formal agendas also include timing and presenter information for each agenda item.

An example of a formal agenda can be a city council agenda used in a state’s city council meeting. These agendas can have an open forum section that makes time for public comment. 

But formal meeting agendas aren’t restricted to the government. 

You can use them in your company’s meetings too. You just have to choose the agenda that suits your team the best . 

Now that you know what a meeting agenda is, let’s look at how you can write one. ✍

Here are the five easy steps you can follow to create the right meeting agenda for your team:

1. Establish the meeting type

Not informing your team about the type of meeting they’d be attending can cause a lot of confusion. 

Imagine a team member attending a regular meeting only to find out that it’s their performance review . 

The horror! 😱

To avoid catching people off-guard, make sure you all know what the meeting is about.

Meetings can be of several different types, including:

• Team meeting: also referred to as a staff meeting, these are opportunities for your team to discuss various business aspects
• Board meeting: a formal meeting among your organization’s board of directors. They’re generally held at regular intervals to review team performances and policy issues
• Executive session: held by board members regularly before their routine board meetings
• Recurring meeting: daily, weekly, or monthly meetings that repeat regularly
• Project kickoff meeting : conducted at the beginning of every new project to inform the team about project objectives, deliverables, and timelines
• Brainstorming meeting: used to flesh out a new idea with your teams in a conducive brainstorming session
• Feedback meeting: hosted to gather constructive feedback from your team regarding new projects and processes
• Agile meeting : a special meeting used to hold hyper-focused discussions for agile teams to conduct sprint reviews, share valuable project information, customer feedback, project updates, etc.
• Scrum meeting: uses a scrum meeting agenda that may include sprint planning, daily standups, product backlog refinement, sprint reviews, etc.
• Retrospective meeting: held after project completion to discuss what went well and what didn’t
• Onboarding meeting : help new hires understand professional expectations in their work environment
• Committee meetings: help a subgroup of team members from your company form a committee to achieve any special function. 

2. State the objective of the meeting

What are the top reasons you’re having a meeting with your team? 

Do you want to update them about a project? Do you want their insights on something? 

Clearly stating the meeting objective gives your team a heads-up on what’s coming their way. At the very least, they’ll know whether to bring a project report or a beer to the meeting.

3. Identify specific meeting topics

Once you have a clear meeting goal, make a list of discussion topics you want your team to cover.

We’re going to let you in on our secret to make your meetings more engaging.

Make sure to pick discussion topics that affect everyone in the meeting. 

This way, you’ll have all your team members willing to participate in the discourse. 

Related: Our remote guide to Virtual Meeting Etiquette !

4. Allocate time to discuss each topic

Meetings are expensive and can be difficult to organize. They’re only productive when they can utilize time effectively. 

That’s why it’s important to allocate a certain amount of time to discuss each meeting topic. And you won’t end up straying and spending all your available time on a single topic. 

Using a consent agenda is another time-saving trick for your meetings. A consent agenda groups recurring discussion topics into a single agenda item that you can easily cross-off. 

These measures will make sure your meetings don’t become a time-suck and a calendar clogger. 👀

5. Include a list of necessary documents

Let’s say you hold a meeting with your project stakeholders . 

One way to make the meeting more productive is to share all project documents through your team meeting agendas ahead of the meeting. 

Think of this as one of the pre-reading activities your teacher would ask you to do back in school. 🤓 This practice sets the right context for every participant in the meeting and empowers them to contribute to the discourse. 

Now that you know what to do, let’s look at some meeting agenda examples to help you see what these steps look like in action. 

Bonus: Conference agenda templates !

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can significantly streamline meeting management, turning every gathering into an efficient and productive experience. By integrating AI with project management tools like ClickUp Brain , teams can leverage automation to handle routine tasks and enhance meeting productivity. Here’s how AI can assist:

• AI-powered Meeting Agendas : ClickUp’s AI capabilities can draft personalized meeting agendas based on the participants’ roles, previous meeting notes, and ongoing project demands. By analyzing prior meeting notes and objectives, AI can help ensure that each meeting covers all critical points without missing a beat.
• Smart Summarization : Post-meeting, AI can condense hours of discussion notes into succinct, actionable summaries. This feature enables participants to swiftly get the gist of the meeting and review any points they may have missed, ensuring everyone is aligned and informed.
• Instant Action Items Creation : ClickUp AI can identify potential tasks from your notes and automatically create action items in ClickUp. This seamless transition from discussion to execution means that follow-ups are clear, time-bound, and less likely to be overlooked or forgotten.

Embedding AI in your meeting processes not only saves time but also enhances the quality of your meetings. It helps to maintain focus, track progress against objectives, and foster a culture of accountability by automating routine yet crucial aspects of meeting management.

Here’s a couple simple meeting agenda example for your reference:

Design Team Meeting

Date: 02/07/24

Time: 09:00 am – 09:45 am

Meeting Participants: @SpongeBob, @Patrick, @Mr.Krabs, @Squidward

Meeting’s Purpose:

• Develop a new website page for product testimonials

a. Before the meeting:

• Every attendee must review the document on product testimonials

b. Discussion topics:

• Review product testimonials document (10 min)
• Discuss the content you want to include on the web page (10 min, @Name)
• Present sample designs for the web page (15 min, @Name)
• Share suggestions and vote on the website design (10 min)

c. Action items:

• Create a timeline for design deliverables – @SpongeBob
• Share first cut of the web page design – @Patrick
• Schedule and make an itinerary for a second meeting to finalize design – @Mr.Krabs

Sales Team Weekly Review Meeting

Date: 04/14/24

Time: 02:00 pm – 02:45 pm

Meeting Participants: @Alice, @Bob, @Charlie, @Dana

• Evaluate weekly sales performance and discuss strategies for improvement
• Each participant should update the CRM with the latest sales data
• Review weekly sales figures and trends (15 min)
• Discuss obstacles in the sales pipeline and solutions (10 min, @Alice)
• Brainstorm strategies for upcoming sales campaign (10 min, @Bob)
• Set goals for the next week (10 min)
• Compile a report of weekly sales metrics – @Charlie
• Draft a preliminary plan for the sales campaign – @Dana
• Organize a training session on new sales software – @Alice

HR Monthly Planning Meeting

Date: 04/21/24

Time: 11:00 am – 12:00 pm

Meeting Participants: @Emma, @Liam, @Noah, @Olivia

• Plan HR activities for the next month and update on current employee initiatives
• Review employee feedback from the previous month
• Analyze employee satisfaction survey results (20 min)
• Update on the status of current recruiting efforts (15 min, @Emma)
• Plan employee engagement activities for the next month (15 min, @Noah)
• Discuss updates to HR policies (10 min)
• Implement changes based on employee feedback – @Liam
• Finalize recruitment schedule and process – @Olivia
• Prepare the schedule for upcoming engagement activities – @Emma

These samples should give you an idea of how you want to design your meeting agenda. To help you further, let’s look at some meeting agenda templates from the most popular online meeting tools .

16 Team Meeting Agenda Templates

Here are 16 meeting agenda templates that you can use to create your next agenda:

One-on-one meetings are your chance to connect and align with the people you manage in the most effective way possible. ClickUp’s 1:1 meeting template keeps all of your agendas—tailored for each individual—in one organized place.

ClickUp’s all-hands meeting template helps to keep communication open across the company, and ensures everyone is aligned and up to speed with individual and group goals. All hands meetings give room to share information from updates to announcements about future agendas and encourage collaboration and alignment throughout the team.

This scrum meeting agenda template by ClickUp will make daily meetings a breeze. Daily status meetings about tasks for projects help to ensure that a team is aware of the progress on their front.

ClickUp’s meeting note-style agenda template is the perfect place to keep all event meeting notes, key takeaways and action items.

Projects don’t always go to plan. Use this project post-mortem template by ClickUp to set new goals and keep your team heading in the right direction.

This collaborative meeting minutes template is a ClickUp Doc designed to provide the perfect outline for a successful meeting summation.

ClickUp’s Meeting Minutes Template  includes pre-built pages for organizing teams, individual meeting notes , and instructions for getting the most out of your meeting with this template!

Turn your meeting notes into a newsletter with newsletter templates !

Save time and gain valuable insights with this simple Sprint Retrospective Template . Whether you are running an agile team meeting or a project management meeting, this template will help you build a crystal-clear picture of what went well, what didn’t go so well, and what to change moving forward.

The main objective of team meetings is to share important information with team members, align on goals, and call out any blockers. This team meeting agenda template helps the team stay focused on the goals of the meeting.

Board meetings tend to run over time. Use a schedule template for your next board meeting using this board meeting agenda to stay on track and finish your meeting on time.

It’s important to set the tone for a new project from the start. Use this project kickoff meeting agenda template to facilitate a successful project launch!

Use this ClickUp meeting dashboard template as an agenda for your next meeting. This template makes it easy to see the status of different tasks during a meeting.

This creative brainstorming meeting agenda is a great way to keep your brainstorming meetings on track from week to week. This template makes it easy to run your meeting and stay focused on brainstorming.

Create structure with this ClickUp Board of Directors Meeting Minutes Template . Record and tag your attendees, organize agenda action items, and take detailed notes for each agenda.

HR departments have a lot to keep track of. This HR meeting agenda template will give your HR team a way to come together for a productive meeting that isn’t complicated or stressful.

Use this marketing meeting agenda to bring your marketing department together to celebrate wins, align on goals, and identify project blockers.

This project management meeting agenda template will help you identify objectives, risks, and deadlines for your next team project.

When it comes to planning a meeting, creating a thorough and well-organized agenda is crucial for ensuring that the meeting runs smoothly and achieves its objectives. Here are some of the key beneficiaries of using a meeting agenda:

• Project Managers: Project managers often have to lead team meetings and having a well-planned agenda helps them to stay on track, cover all necessary topics, and keep the meeting focused.
• Project Status Meeting Agenda
• Project Coordinators Meeting Agenda
• Lessons Learned Meeting Agenda
• Post Mortem Meeting Agenda
• Leadership Teams: Meeting agendas are also beneficial for leadership teams, such as executive boards or management teams. They can help to ensure that important topics are discussed, decisions are made efficiently, and everyone is on the same page with regards to company goals and strategies.
• Leadership Offsite Meeting Agenda
• Executive Leadership Meeting Agenda
• Board of Trustees Meeting Agenda
• Executives Meeting Agenda

An effective meeting agenda will make team collaboration seem like a cakewalk. 

And when collaboration becomes easy, your team can focus on amping up their productivity and getting their creative juices flowing. 

With the help of a project management tool like ClickUp, writing effective meeting agendas and managing meetings are easier than ever!

ClickUp lets you document every meeting, manage agendas, take down effective meeting minutes , assign comments to your team, and so much more.  

Ready to watch your team ace teamwork and hit all their objectives? 

Get ClickUp for free today and say goodbye to meeting disasters. 👋

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How to write an effective team meeting agenda (with templates!)

Because if there’s no agenda, there shouldn’t be a meeting in the first place.

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5-second summary

• Team meeting agendas help you prioritize important topics and keep things running smoothly and efficiently, so your team walks away from the meeting feeling motivated and aligned.
• All agendas are not created equal; read our tips to learn what to include on every agenda, and how to tailor your agenda depending on the goals of your meeting.
• Templates are a helpful jumping-off point, and can be tailored to meet the needs of your particular meeting.

Imagine you’re knee-deep in work, laser-focused, and ready to tackle the next task on your lengthy list. Nothing can stand in your way…except for the meeting you have in 10 minutes. Now imagine that you come out of that meeting inspired and motivated – exhilarated, even. And despite that dreaded context-switching , you’re able to pick up right where you left off with even more gas in the tank. This is how productive and effective meetings should make you feel. But how do you get there?

Your secret weapon might just be a team meeting agenda. Too often relegated to an afterthought, this handy tool can go a long way to help you run more effective in-person or virtual meetings. It helps with managing time, setting expectations, and staying on the task at hand. Agendas ensure that you have a clear purpose and that you can achieve the goals you set, whether you’re plotting your quarterly budget or creating a project timeline – real, shareable results. Team meeting agendas also help you prioritize the things you want to talk about, so you can guide your team through the most important topics of the week.

Leading productive, fruitful meetings doesn’t always come naturally – and that’s okay. Follow these helpful tips for creating an effective team meeting agenda, including a few free templates to get you started and a video with tips on how Atlassian approaches meeting agendas, taken from Atlassian University’s course How to Run Effective Meetings .

What is a team meeting agenda?

A team meeting agenda is an organized and scheduled list of topics and action items that you plan to discuss with your team during a meeting. It’s there to help you prioritize the most important topics and keep things running smoothly and efficiently so your team walks away from the meeting feeling motivated and aligned. But it’s not enough to jot down a simple list of topics and put a time stamp next to each one; it actually takes a fair amount of thought and effort to organize an effective team meeting agenda.

5 tips for creating an effective team meeting agenda

How to run effective meetings in the era of hybrid work

The most effective team meeting agendas are well-planned, clear, and concise. Here, it really helps to take a step back and put yourself in your team’s shoes. Be sure to consider your audience and what they already know; the purpose of your meeting (are you trying to solve a problem, brainstorm ideas, or make a decision; and how you can make your meeting as engaging and memorable as possible?

After skimming the agenda items, all team members should understand the purpose of the meeting and their roles within it, as well as anything they need to prepare for like questions about a certain project or deadline. This kind of preparation eliminates distractions and keeps the momentum going, leading to a more productive meeting. Here are five ways to create an effective team meeting agenda.

• Tailor your agenda to each meeting. Not all meetings are created equal, and not all agendas should be either. Maybe your weekly team meeting agenda needs a space for wins and shoutouts, but your workshop meeting agenda doesn’t. Because there are many types of meetings, do your best to format your agenda in a way that’s appropriate for your meeting and your team.
• Prioritize your agenda items. They’re the meat of your entire meeting – the reason(s) you’ve decided it was worthwhile to pull everyone away from their work and discuss each topic. That’s why it’s absolutely necessary to prioritize each item from highest priority to lowest priority, with the understanding that you’ll push the lowest-priority items to the next meeting if you run out of time.
• Include an icebreaker or other team-building activity . Icebreakers set a more casual tone (if that’s what you’re going for), and serve as a way to engage each person on the team. But keep in mind the size of your team and the length of your meeting. A complex icebreaker with 20 participants could take up your whole meeting.
• Hold enough time for questions and discussion. A well-planned meeting holds more than a measly 60 seconds for questions at the end. Reserve enough time to discuss the items on your agenda and encourage participation. Instead of asking, “Do you have any questions?” Try rephrasing it as “What questions do you have?” It’s a lot easier to shake your head “no” and get on with your day rather than thinking about questions for the agenda items. This could also spark healthy debate and spars.
• End on a positive note. Saving a few minutes to give team members some kudos will leave them feeling valued and motivated – when’s the last time you got an appreciative shoutout and did less work afterward? Whether it’s calling out people individually or thanking everyone as a group, your team will see that their hard work doesn’t go unnoticed.

On a more granular level, here are some characteristics at the core of most or all team meeting agendas.

What should all team meeting agendas include?

Every team meeting agenda should include the following basic elements to keep everyone in the loop:

• Date, time, and location: These details are especially important for dispersed teams. Be mindful of where everyone is and specify which time zone you’re in. As for the location, these days it might be a Zoom link or another chat channel instead of a physical location, so don’t forget to include that as well.
• Objective and goals: Use this as your North Star. Ask yourself, “What type of meeting is this? What am I trying to get out of it?” Be straightforward with everyone else about it so everyone’s on the same page and stays focused on the task at hand.
• Facilitator and attendees: You don’t necessarily have to take attendance, but keeping track of who’s running the show can orient team members about who to notify in case they can’t make it to the meeting or if they have something to add to the agenda.
• Agenda items: The purpose of agenda items is to make it crystal clear to the team what topics you’ll be discussing, what you want to accomplish within that item, and any action that needs to be taken. Keep it brief and avoid using jargon so everyone has a crystal-clear understanding of what’s to come.
• Time for each topic: Indicating an estimated time for each agenda item is crucial to keeping your meeting on track and on pace.
• Team check-in: Whether or not you do an icebreaker, find time to check in with your team members and their well-being. It’s important to show compassion and make sure they know you also care about factors that might be affecting them outside of work. Check-ins also ease your team into the meeting before diving right into business.

It’s also worth noting that agendas need to be circulated to all participants at least a day before the meeting. Doing so ensures that your team has had a chance to review what projects and assignments will be covered so that they come prepared for discussion. You might also welcome some feedback from your team in case you missed a thing or two.

Atlassian’s approach to team meeting agendas

Curious about how we approach meeting agendas at Atlassian? Check out this clip from Mark Cruth, Atlassian’s resident Modern Work expert and evangelist. Focused on practice over theory, Mark spends his days coaching both Atlassian and customer teams on new ways of working.

For more practical tips, enroll in the How to Run Effective Meetings course from Atlassian University – it’s completely free.

Team meeting agenda templates to get you started

6 types of meetings that are worth your time (and 3 that aren’t)

You might be wondering whether it’s worth your time to create an agenda. Although it can be a lot of work upfront, the amount of time you put into making a clear agenda can be compensated for by the efficiency of your now-wildly-productive meeting.

There are tons of free templates to choose from online – don’t hesitate to tailor them to your meeting’s particular needs. To start, check out our top team meeting agenda Confluence templates (downloadable with a free account) and explore how you can make each one your own.

• All hands meeting agenda template
• Remote team meeting agenda template
• Workshop meeting agenda template
• Brainstorming meeting agenda template
• Problem-solving meeting agenda template

Advice, stories, and expertise about work life today.

The 4 Meeting Agendas that Drive Strategic Execution (Plus Guidebooks for Each)

• Introduction
• The Dual Cadence of Leadership Meetings
• The Leadership Team Meeting Agenda Templates

The Daily Huddle

The weekly leadership team meeting, annual strategic planning, the quarterly strategic refresh.

• BONUS: The Monthly + Anytime Decision Making Meeting
• How the Leadership Cadence Meetings Work Together
• Additional Resources

1. Introduction

When we started Lucid Meetings , it wasn’t because we were all excited about meetings.

It was because meetings are the most powerful tool, but also the most neglected, underdeveloped, and misapplied tool, we can use to create a healthy business.

The meetings aren’t the goal. It’s the well-run business that we’re after.

Recently we’ve been exploring the science and theory behind what makes meetings successful.

You can read all about the core function of meetings , the underlying structures that make them work , and the science behind effective decision making in meetings on our blog.

Today, we’re putting all that into practice. This post covers the core meetings that drive effective business management.

2. The Dual Cadence of Leadership Meetings

In his 2017 letter to shareholders , Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos emphasized the importance of accelerating decision making velocity. High-performing leadership teams make decisions rapidly, but not recklessly.

To do so, they need to understand the organization’s overall strategy, so they can make decisions in line with that strategy. They also need to understand the context in which they operate, so their decisions can be implemented.

The leadership team’s job is to make decisions that keep reality aligned with the strategy, and the strategy relevant to the day-to-day reality.

To make this work, they must act at two levels.

• They work on the business , setting strategy, reviewing performance, and safe-keeping the organization’s long term health. This is the strategic level, setting the organization’s aspirations.
• They work in the business , managing teams, monitoring programs, and clearing any roadblocks that get in the way. This is the operational level, grounded in the organization’s reality. 

These two levels of focus are deeply linked yet distinct.  But the kind of thinking and decision making we need when resolving a logistics problem ( operations ) is not the kind of thinking we need when evaluating the threat posed by a looming budget shortfall ( strategy ). 

The way a team talks about their work changes the work. If we talk about the big strategic challenges the same way we approach our day-to-day tasks, we waste unnecessary time on the small items and give the big ones short shrift.

This is why it’s important to keep meetings at the  operational  and  strategic  levels separate.

The frequency of operational meetings drives the organization’s work momentum.

Leadership teams hold operational meetings often to make sure all the moving parts stay coordinated and problems can be raised and solved quickly.

Frequent operational meetings also ensure that leaders know their reality. They do not let days of change and drift pass between check-ins; they have their fingers on the pulse.

The frequency of strategic meetings drives the organization’s adaptability.

Adjust strategy too often and the organization flails. Wait too long, though, and the organization either stagnates by sticking with a plan that no longer works, or loses coherence as people forget the original strategy and become lost in the everyday minutiae.

This creates the following rules for leadership team meetings:

• Keep operational and strategic meetings separate.
• Hold operational meetings frequently. Weekly at a minimum.
• Hold strategic meetings periodically. Quarterly at a minimum.
• Plan for both. Strategy drives the operational reality, and a grounding in reality keeps the strategy relevant.

3. The Leadership Team Meeting Agenda Templates

The meeting agenda templates and guides outlined below provide a solid foundation for scheduling and running your leadership team’s meeting cadence .

There are 5 meetings in the series.

The Operational Meeting Cadence:

The Strategic Meeting Cadence:

• Quarterly Strategic Refresh

The Monthly + Anytime Decision Making Meeting

Before you invest the time figuring out if these meeting agenda templates will work for your team, let me address some questions you may have.

What can I expect from these meetings?

Running these meetings will change how you work together, how you feel about your work and how you feel about each other.

Teams that adopt this meeting cadence dedicate time to solving problems and making decisions together, and to using proven methods that result in the best decisions available to them.

This cadence increases transparency and accountability. It demands discipline and encourages constructive debate. It will challenge any team that isn’t confronting their elephants.

These meetings demand more, and deliver more. They’re also way more fun than the traditional soul-sucking staff meeting.

The templates themselves provide a framework for each meeting based on best practices. Each is a good example of how to approach that meeting, adapted from many other good examples.

How important is it that we follow a template exactly?

It isn’t! These templates show one way to run each meeting. The facilitator’s guide also includes tips for adapting each meeting and links to other good examples.

The specific agendas can and should change to match your team’s work requirements, as long as you stick to a regular cadence and ensure each agenda you use achieves the goals for that meeting.

“The process is not the thing. It’s always worth asking, do we own the process or does the process own us?” another gem from Jeff Bezos’ 2017 shareholder letter

That said, before changing an agenda too much, make sure you’re doing so for the right reason. While it may not feel natural at first, every agenda item in these meetings serves a results-oriented purpose.

What do I need to use these templates?

• You need a strategy.
• You need a way of measuring progress.
• You need the discipline to work your strategy.
• Your team needs the ability and willingness to raise and wrestle with hard issues.

Can I use these templates if my team doesn’t have any of that?

Yes, but you’ll have to adjust many of the agendas to find another way of discussing your progress.

If you lack a strategy or a way of measuring progress, we recommend starting there. For a simple soup-to-nuts approach, try Anna O’Byrnes Essential Strategic Planning Toolkit , which walks you through the basics and gets you some measurable goals.

Alternatively, start here and do some shopping:  Navigating the Dozens of Different Strategy Options

If the team lacks discipline or constructive dialogue techniques, you can try establishing this meeting cadence as part of how you build that. Expect resistance. Coaching may help.

Books you might also find helpful: Five Dysfunctions of a Team , Crucial Conversations .

My ( leadership coach, executive consultant, favorite management book, etc. ) says we must ( use XYZ technique, measure ABC, etc. ) to succeed. Why isn’t that included in your templates?

These templates are designed to work regardless of the specific strategic planning framework or management methodology you use. They provide an effective foundation for teams that don’t have an established meeting practice, and inspiration for teams who need to try something new.

If your practice says you need to varnish the OKRs/Rocks/KPIs, please substitute those anywhere that we talk about scorecards and metrics below. If you need to establish quorum to start a meeting, or open with a prayer, please do.

You are free to color outside the lines.

We’ve prepared facilitator guides for all the meetings described here, and put them together in a single packet that you can download at the end of the post. You can also get the guide for each individual meeting if there’s one that interests you.

Let’s take a look at these meetings in more detail.

4. The Operational Management Meetings

Driving day-to-day execution.

There are two meetings in the operational cadence; a short Daily Huddle and a longer weekly team meeting. Both meetings include time spent sharing information, ensuring all leaders work with the latest updates.

Both meetings also devote some time to building inter-team relationships, which helps the leadership group work well together. The main focus for these meetings, however, is problem solving.

The Daily Huddle is a short meeting designed to keep teams in synch and kick the day into gear. You may know it by its other name: the daily stand-up .

This meeting is administrative in nature, covering who’s doing what today, where they’re stuck, and any opportunities they can share.

Desired Outcomes

When run well, a Daily Huddle:

• Eliminating a lot of email back-and-forth spent coordinating schedules, hand-offs, etc.
• Answering the “What is Fred up to?” question
• Relieving anxiety caused by uncertainty
• People share info & resources that can help a colleague with an immediate problem
• Teams prevent wasted or duplicative effort
• Someone discovers a chance to learn or participate in a new activity
• Getting someone help quickly when blocked
• Re-routing dependent activity
• Re-balancing assignments during crunch times

The Daily Huddle Process

Process: 15 minutes or less. Everyone stands if meeting in person.

When assembled, the group starts an informal go around. Each person shares:

• Plans for the day
• Stuck/Blocks and possibly
• New key decisions or learning
• Confidence on goal completion

Tips for the Huddle

• The Huddle is for identifying obstacles and finding help. The problem solving itself happens after the Huddle between only those people who need to be involved.
• If no one raises any issues for more than a few days in a row, probe harder. There are always issues, and this meeting is about finding them while they’re still small.
• Make sure people share any time when they plan to be unavailable, either due to work or personal commitments. This lets everyone else know to expect delays getting replies and plan accordingly.

For more details, download the facilitator’s guide for running this meeting:

The Weekly meeting lasts 60 – 90 minutes, and is scheduled for the same time and day each week. In this meeting, teams drive accountability to the plan and identify and resolve issues impeding progress.

While there is some discussion of status and progress, this agenda keeps all that short. Instead, much more time goes directly into problem solving.

It’s a very rewarding way to work, because not only do you stay up-to-date, you see that you’re part of a group that can deal with issues and get stuff done.

When run well, a Weekly Leadership meeting:

• Keeping strategic priorities visible
• Revealing progress (or lack thereof) on goal achievement
• Alerting the team to changes or trends that indicate a bigger problem
• Dedicating time to resolving one or two blocking problems every week
• Requiring that the most important issues get addressed, not ignored
• Celebrating victories together
• Sharing personal connections
• Building trust through guided, constructive confrontation
• Fostering a sense of accomplishment

The Weekly Leadership Team Meeting Agenda

Duration: 90 minutes

• Welcome & Review Actions List (5 minutes)
• Schedule Announcements (5 minutes)
• Victories (5 minutes)
• Review the Numbers (5 minutes)
• Quarterly Priorities & Progress (5 minutes)
• Identify Top Issues (5 minutes)
• Tackle Top Issues (50 minutes)
• Review and Confirm Actions List (10 minutes)

Tips for the Weekly Leadership Team Meeting

• The first 5 agenda items reconnect the team with each other, their commitments, and the previously stated goals. This is how you keep accountability to execution front-and-center.
• An issue or challenge has been addressed when the team decides on a course of action and assigns an owner and due date. To drive follow-up, you’ll review this action list at the close and beginning of every weekly meeting.

5. The Strategic Management Meetings

Driving the correct course of action.

There are three meetings in the strategic cadence: an Annual Strategic Planning meeting, a Quarterly Strategic Refresh, and the Monthly + Anytime Strategy meeting. The three meetings operate at different levels of detail and scope.

• The Annual meeting establishes the high-level strategy for the coming year.
• The Monthly + Anytime meeting solves a specific strategic challenge. This meeting can be scheduled any time it’s needed (hence the name) and/or scheduled on a recurring monthly basis.

The strategic planning process is where teams paint their grandest visions. It is a time to imagine bright futures and think big thoughts, then wrestle these visions into a form that can be translated into action.

Most groups dedicate at least one to two days for strategic planning every year. In our case, we run strategic planning sessions as a set of short two-hour workshops.

Many larger organizations will spend weeks gathering input before leading a series of planning workshops that then produce annual, 5-year, and even longer-range plans.

What constitutes big or strategic? That’s relative, and because it varies so dramatically from group to group, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to strategic planning.

The design for your Annual Strategic Planning sessions will depend on:

• Whether you have an existing plan, or are starting from scratch
• The stability of your organization and operating environment
• The size and nature of the planning team
• The time you can devote to planning

Our gallery has a sampling of Strategic Planning meeting templates appropriate for those of you who need a place to start.

You can  pick and choose the ones you need, or  run all of the meetings in this series:

• Vision & Mission
• Organizational Values
• Goals & Strategies
• The Essential Strategic Planning Toolkit  (all meetings)

Stable groups might prefer Paul Axtell’s Quick Strategic Refresh .

This meeting requires at least 4 hours to run, but while it’s possible to cover the material in that time, it’s not ideal. Where the annual planning meeting asks everyone to think big picture and long term, the Quarterly meeting requires that teams face their truths.

Are the organization’s actions lined up with the vision? How well have the projections matched reality? What’s going on in the outside world that means your plans need to change?

90 days—or one quarter—is long enough that teams can see results (or lack thereof). It’s also long enough that it’s become hard for everyone to keep the spirit of the original strategy fresh in their minds.

Quarterly Strategy meetings often raise questions about what the original strategy actually meant, as differences have had time to grow.

When possible, we recommend scheduling a 1 to 2 day off-site for this meeting. Moving off site helps the group step away from the day-to-day operations, and provides better opportunities for reinforcing the relationships you need in place in order to work through challenging questions.

When run well, a Quarterly Strategic Refresh meeting:

• Revisiting the plan and clarifying definitions
• Challenging assumptions
• Reviewing recent events for impact to the overall strategy
• Reviewing past performance against targets so new reality-based targets can be set
• Documenting the specific programs and targets for every functional group in the coming 90 days
• Celebrating victories and accomplishments
• Sharing key learnings, goals and challenges
• Working together to establish a 90 day plan to which the whole team can commit

The Quarterly Strategic Meeting Agenda

This is an outline only. You’ll find more detail in the facilitator’s guide.

• Past quarter highlights
• Key learnings
• Goals for the day
• Review Agenda
• Review the overall strategy
• Review quarterly progress
• Review the open issues list
• What went well and why?
• What didn’t go well and why?
• What’s changed in our overall context in the past 90 days?
• What do we need to adjust in our approach for next quarter?

Checkpoint and LONG Break

• Reconnect One-word phrase: How are you feeling about tackling the planning in front of us?
• What do we specifically need to start, stop, and continue?
• Define metrics: New quarterly targets, KPIs, etc
• Define action plan: Who, What, When
• Review Parking Lot
• Confirm plans
• Identify key messages to be shared with stakeholders
• Anything else that needs to be said?
• Offer appreciations
• One-phrase review

Tips for the Quarterly Strategic Meeting

• Take breaks every 90 minutes or so. This gives people time to talk in small groups and think through any hard issues. It also helps everyone stay more focused in the meeting, giving them a chance to check in on the day-to-day activity.
• Keep the discussion structured but not rigid. You’re a team of colleagues working together to drive your business – this should feel more like an intense meeting and less like an over-planned workshop.
• If you have the time, add more to the agenda. The quarterly meeting can be a good time for the leadership team to evaluate key personnel, for example. A shared meal or two creates opportunities for deeper discussion and relationships.

Does all that look like too much? Paul’s Strategic Refresh is a shorter meeting that can be used as a Quarterly Refresh for groups that don’t want or need to go this deep.

Last but not least, the Monthly + Anytime meeting dedicates time to deeply investigating and addressing a specific strategic challenge. The process follows best practices for problem solving and decision making with a group.

We call this an “anytime” meeting because it should be scheduled any time a serious strategic issue comes up. That said, we’ve included it in the leadership cadence because many organizations find it useful to put one of these meetings on the calendar every month – before a problem occurs.

Why schedule a problem solving meeting before you know you have a problem? Three reasons:

• This is a longer meeting involving key decision makers in your organization. It can be very hard to get time on their calendar on short notice.

Without a monthly time reserved, it’s tempting to tackle strategic issues during the weekly meeting, which sabotages the tactical nature of that meeting and leads to rushed and/or sloppy decision making.

• There are always strategic challenges! New opportunities, new threats, hard decisions: c’mon! You know this stuff will come up, so you might as well have a plan for dealing with it.

When run well, a Monthly + Anytime Strategic meeting:

• Establishing a clear understanding of the issue and goals
• Driving healthy debate between informed options
• Documenting the decision
• Setting clear expectations about the decision authority and criteria
• Using an inclusive process to hear from all voices
• Defining next steps with identified owners and due dates

The Monthly + Anytime Strategic Meeting

• Confirm purpose
• Clarify the decision making process
• Present the Decision Challenge
• Debate & Discuss Options
• Decide and Commit
• Set next steps: who, what, when
• Determine cascading messages: who needs to know what?
• Set a date to review the decision outcome
• Final review: anything that needs to be answered, said, or addressed?
• Appreciations
• Meeting feedback

Tips for the Monthly + Anytime Strategic Meeting

• You can tackle more than one topic if they’re not too large. This process is designed to tackle a single strategic challenge. If you want to tackle more than one topic, you will need to repeat steps 2 through 5 for each. Anticipate at least 30 minutes for each smaller decision.
• Preparation is required. The team needs good information to make good decisions, which means someone has to do the research first.
• Decide on the appropriate decision making process in advance. Learn more about that in our guide to Making Decisions in Meetings .

6. How the Leadership Cadence Meetings Work Together

Now that we’ve looked at the individual meetings in the series, let’s see how they all work together to keep an organization humming.

A 90 (ok, 94) Day Schedule

Here’s one way you might plan out this cadence for a quarter.

• Days 1-2: All day Annual Strategic Planning (16 hours) Your team sets the strategy, annual priorities and target metrics for the first quarter.
• Day 3: Daily Huddles begin. Huddles take 10 minutes. The Huddle is a short meeting with verbal reports, so no one needs any extra prep time.

Week 2 – 13:

In the first week, there isn’t much to report. As the weeks go by, though, it gets easier to see which parts of the plan aren’t working out as planned. Some issues are straightforward, so the team knocks those out in the weekly meeting. Others are harder, so they get put on the list for the monthly strategic meeting.

Held every day except Monday, when the team already spends 90 minutes together. After a few weeks of this regular check-in, you start to notice patterns. Maybe you discover that the different groups aren’t working at the same pace, creating constant delays. Maybe some departments are crushing it and others always seem to be struggling. No big emergencies, but you’ve got a feel for the pulse and a sense for where you need to make adjustments in how the organization operates.

Weeks 4 and 9:

In one of the Monday meetings, your team brought up a problem or an opportunity that couldn’t be resolved in 30 minutes. So in your Weekly Leadership meeting, you assigned one or two people to conduct more research and make recommendations.

The leaders researching the challenge dug into the details, and sent a report to everyone outlining the facts. They also worked with their teams and colleagues to find at least 3 viable options to decide between. Depending on the challenge, this could have taken hours or days – time spent making sure the team makes the best possible decision they can.

Not everyone on the leadership team needs to attend the Monthly Strategic meeting. If this month’s challenge comes from the marketing department, and the safety lead doesn’t really have any skin in that game, she may choose to bow out. Those who do participate make sure they’ve read the report in advance and come prepared, each spending up to an hour getting ready for the meeting.

At the end of the Monthly Strategic meeting, the team has a decision and a set of new action items to add to the list they’ll review during next Monday’s Weekly Leadership meeting.

Week 14 and it’s been 90 days since your team set the strategic plan. With the Daily Huddles, you’ve learned the day-to-day rhythm of how work flows through the organization. The Weekly Leadership meetings have shown where the original plan is working well, and where it’s not. You’ve been deeply involved in all the small, important work of execution.

Finally, during the Monthly Strategic meeting you’ve learned how to critically examine big issues and refine specific strategies.

Now it’s time to pull back and look at the big picture. Given everything you’ve learned about each other, the organization, and the work at hand, what needs adjustment? What should the targets for this coming quarter be? Which big challenges do you still need to dig into? You’ll dedicate Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning to refining the plan, enjoying a nice dinner in between.

After the Quarterly Strategic meeting, one person will make sure that the new targets are all set up so you can start reviewing them in next Monday’s Leadership meeting.

… and repeat.

A 10% Time Investment That Drives Your Business

I did the math, and here’s a surprise. While the plan above looks and sounds like a ton of time spent in meetings, it represents just 10% of a full-time employee’s available time.

Actually, just under 10%; 4.9% spent in operational meetings (26.5 hours) and 5% in strategy sessions (27 hours) over the course of 13 weeks and 2 days (536 hours).

In reality, some people will spend more time than this. Anyone researching an issue for the Monthly Strategic meeting needs to spend considerable time there. Everyone needs to add another hour or two over the course of the quarter to prepare for the Weekly meetings by updating their metrics and action items.

And the Quarterly meeting requires yet another hour or two of prep from everyone involved. Annual Planning also takes more time – but far less in years 2 and 3 than it did before you put this cadence in place, because you’re building and refining instead of starting from scratch. 

This is an incredibly efficient approach to managing a business.

Personally, I’ve worked in environments without this structure where we spent WAY more time talking about our progress, lack of progress, and strategic challenges – rarely ever deciding on ways to solve our problems.

We just kept talking about them and pointing fingers and bemoaning how impossible it all was because we didn’t know what else to do.

I’m happy to have learned a better way.

7. Next Steps

Lucid Meetings is a system designed to support a meeting cadence like this.

If you use or want to try out this pattern with your team, you should give our software a try. We have a template for each meeting described here that will make your setup, action item tracking, and meeting management a breeze.

You can also download our facilitator’s guides to learn how to lead these meetings and run them however you see fit.

We have a guide for each meeting, and a packet that includes the guides to all the meeting templates mentioned in this post. Expect to kill some trees if you want to print it out; it’s hefty stuff.

Finally, we developed this meeting cadence after lots of research and experimentation. We are building on the work of the many others who have gone before.

Our choices may or may not be right for you, so I’ve listed a selection of additional resources below. There you’ll find lots of variations on this theme, and perhaps some alternate techniques that better fit your crew.

As always, comments, questions, and corrections are very welcome. Now go run a magnificent organization!

General FAQ

What is ‘the dual cadence’ of leadership meetings.

Leadership Teams must act at two levels.

• They work in the business , managing teams, monitoring programs, and clearing any roadblocks that get in the way. This is the operational level, grounded in the organization’s reality.

What are the five critical Leadership Team meetings?

• The Daily Huddle (an operational meeting)
• The Weekly Leadership Team Meeting (an operational meeting)
• Annual Strategic Planning (a strategic meeting)
• Quarterly Strategic Refresh (a strategic meeting)
• The Monthly + Anytime Decision Making Meeting (a strategic and/or operational meeting)

What can I expect from these Leadership Team meetings?

How important is it that we follow your example template exactly.

It isn’t! These templates show one way to run each meeting. The facilitator’s guide also includes tips for adapting each meeting and links to other good examples.

What do I need in place before using your example templates?

Can i use your example templates if my team doesn’t have discipline, why don’t your example templates include my leadership coach’s favorite techniques, how do the leadership cadence meetings work together.

You’ll want to develop your own Meeting Flow Model that connects all the dots. We’ve provided a great starting point for you and you should probably begin with that. But in the end you’ll want to make this your own ⏼ and we heartily encourage that!

8. Additional Resources

Business management.

• Patrick Lencioni “ Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable…About Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business “
• Geno Wickman, “ Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business “
• Verne Harnish , “ Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It…and Why the Rest Don’t (Rockefeller Habits 2.0) “
• Peter Drucker, “ The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done “

Meeting Design

• Dick and Emily Axelrod, “ Let’s Stop Meeting Like This “
• Rick Lent, “ Leading Great Meetings: How to Structure Yours for Success “
• Paul Axtell, “ Meetings Matter: 8 Powerful Strategies for Remarkable Conversations “
• The Role of Meetings in the Social Practice of Strategy

Articles and Blog Posts

• The Art of the Huddle
• Counter-Intuitive Leadership: Building Teams That Can (Accurately) Predict the Future (about the Weekly meeting)
• The Importance Of Management Meeting Agendas (Before, During, & After)
• Recognize and Plan for Results – The Quarterly Meeting
• Effective Quarterly Meeting Planning
• How to Make a Big Impact at Your Next Quarterly Meeting
• The Big Lie of Strategic Planning
• Five Steps to a Strategic Plan
• Video:  Dave Snowden – How leaders change culture through small actions
• Strategy: Blog posts and templates
• Debunking 4 Common Myths about Stand-Up Meetings
• How often should you meet? Selecting the right meeting cadence for your team.
• Making Decisions in Meetings
• The Meeting Performance Maturity Model

Categories: leadership & facilitation ​ strategy

Elise Keith

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How to Create an Agenda for a Planning Meeting

A well-written meeting agenda organizes and outlines the meeting's required points of conversation. It highlights important information and helps attendees determine their roles and responsibilities within the meeting. For a planning meeting, the agenda is especially important as it helps to ensure that all planning aspects are addressed within the designated meeting time.

• Define the planning meeting's logistics. Provide information on the meeting's time and location. Include special instructions, such as participation codes for conference calls and login information for online meetings.
• List the planning meeting's attendees, along with the roles each attendee will serve in the meeting. Provide a list of items or information that the attendees will need to prepare for the planning, such as identified metrics, blueprints and completed research information.
• Identify the information or project that the meeting attendee will plan. List the important aspects that need to be addressed in the order of importance. Apply time segments to each topic to ensure that each gets the appropriate amount of attention. Use an outline format to bullet-point the information for easy reading and reference. Feel free to provide more planning time for certain topics.
• Send each attendee a copy of the planning meeting agenda at least a full day before the meeting. Send the agenda several days, or weeks, before the meeting if the attendees need to complete extensive research in order to prepare for the meeting.
• Use the prepared agenda to lead the attendees through the actual planning meeting. Pay attention to the time-line provided in the agenda and direct the meeting according to the outline to ensure that all areas are addressed.

More For You

How to: marketing plan in powerpoint, organizational skills for meetings, how to arrange a business meeting, how to conduct a stakeholders meeting, goals of a team leader.

• University of Missouri Extension: Checklist for Planning a Successful Meeting

Writing professionally since 2004, Charmayne Smith focuses on corporate materials such as training manuals, business plans, grant applications and technical manuals. Smith's articles have appeared in the "Houston Chronicle" and on various websites, drawing on her extensive experience in corporate management and property/casualty insurance.

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Sample Strategic Planning Agenda | Strategic Planning Process UPDATED

By Anthony Taylor - March 29, 2023

Strategic planning Agenda for your next strategy meeting.

We've been leading strategic planning meetings for the past 12 years (and counting), and we've tested dozens of different strategic planning agendas so that you don't have to. Use our experience to have the best and most effective strategic planning process. 

Need a strategic planning facilitator so you can participate in an unbiased strategic planning process? Contact us today or learn more about your facilitation options:

Free resources to support your strategic planning. 

Download these tools to complement your strategic planning agenda. 

• Strategic planning template
• Alignment Scorecard: Measure your team's alignment
• 15 questions to ask your team before strategic planning . 

What is a good strategic planning process?

• Tips to prepare for a strategic planning meeting
• Recommended Pre-Work Agenda & Timeline
• One Day strategic planning meeting agenda
• Two Day strategic planning meeting agenda
• Three day strategic planning meeting agenda

Virtual strategic planning meeting agenda

A good strategic planning process will help your team get clear and aligned on a few key areas:

• Where are we now?
• Where are we going?
• What's going to get in the way?
• How are we going to implement the plan/what do we need to do? 

If you're leading a strategic planning process with a team, getting alignment is critical. 

If you don't have a good process, you'll likely go on many tangents, "get stuck in the weeds" of the details, and not end up with a clear direction. 

A good strategic planning process needs a balance of outcomes and actions to help you reach your vision, or One Destination. 

With too many actions, you'll be busy working on a lot of tasks but might not be working in the right direction or towards shared outcomes. 

Without any actions, it means that your team will get stuck on determining "what's next" and your plan will take a much longer time to implement, or worse, not get implemented at all.

How to have a successful strategic planning meeting

After having led hundreds of strategy meetings both online and virtually (and all over the world) here are some things to consider prior to developing your agenda to ensure you have a good strategy meeting/offsite and overall strategic planning process:

Leverage Pre-work so the time you spend in the strategy meeting are used optimally. Don't present documents or research that could have been done in advance. Use the time to have discussions, and make important choices.

Have high-quality food and snacks, including breakfast with protein. Strategic planning is an incredibly taxing process for the brain and requires lots of calories. You don't want your group hitting a mid-afternoon lull when the most important work of the day is still underway. Have a good breakfast, good snacks, and high-quality meals. Avoid carb-heavy meals so people don't have a sugar crash, and save any alcohol for the end of the day after your planning session is complete. 

Go offsite if possible: When we've done sessions at people's offices, they get interrupted with day-to-day issues and takes away their ability to get outside of the day-to-day. I've also found that people are slightly more reserved because they don't want staff to know what's going on until the whole strategic planning process is complete. You'll find that while there is an additional cost to going offsite, you'll get better engagement from participants of the strategy meeting. 

Use a facilitator: If you don't have a facilitator, you are the facilitator. This means that if you're the CEO or head of HR, you're going to have a really hard time balancing the hat of facilitator, and your own role. You won't be able to participate fully if you're facilitating. Furthermore, your participants will have a harder time being honest and transparent with a facilitator who already has a bias one way or the other. 

Think strategically: People love get to get into the how/actions before fully clarifying the what and why (Mission/Vision). The result is that you'll get into rabbit holes, you'll digress, and people will get frustrated. Focus on your highest-level strategic outcomes and work your way to the actions, not the other way around. 

Wear the group hat: Strategic planning meetings get easily derailed when individual participants focus on their own needs/desires ahead of those of the group. Ask everyone to come to the meeting "wearing their organization hat" not their individual role hat. It's not a problem they advocate for their own role, but it's a group session first and foremost. 

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Recommended pre-work agenda & timeline: .

Pre-work serves two purposes: one, to make sure that your people are prepared for the upcoming strategic planning sessions so that you can make the most of your time, and two, to help align and engage participants (and stakeholders) early on in the planning process. 

One day strategic planning meeting agenda

This one-day planning agenda is great for a small company or non-profit that needs a refresher on the organization's direction.

If you want to make the most of your limited time for strategic planning, learn more about using a strategic planning facilitator for your session. 

Before sharing the agenda, we want to note that we no longer facilitate or offer to facilitate one-day strategic planning meetings. 

Most notably, because as an external team we could not accomplish full alignment or create a complete enough strategic plan with only a one-day agenda. 

If you are leading this process internally, and you’ve been able to successfully pull stakeholders into the process prior to this one-day meeting.

And/or you will have subsequent strategy meetings at a later date to complete the strategic planning process fully. This one-day meeting is the first of many strategic planning sessions, then please use the agenda below. 

If your only option is to have a one day strategy meeting, it’s better than no meeting.

We would not advise any of our clients to only have a one-day strategic planning meeting and expect to have full clarity or alignment with your current state, vision, mission, values, priorities, goals and actions within an 8-hour day. It’s jut not realistic.

That said, If all the pre-work was done we’d focus on the core conversations needed for alignment. 

“To maximize your time, make sure to get your team involved prior to your one-day strategy meeting. Our free strategic planning questionnaire offers the key questions to help start you r strategic planning process ”

• Vision: Where are we going? Watch : How to Start the Vision Planning Process
• Mission/purpose: Why do we exist? Who is the customer we serve?
• Strategic Priorities: What do we need to focus on to achieve our Vision? Watch : How to Set Strategic Priorities
• Action planning for the strategic priorities

A few things to note:

This one-day planning session is possible if you have a small team of six or less people. If you have more people, then you will likely need more time to work through the complete process. 

The survey is a survey we run with our clients to help them get in the right mindset, and ask the key questions before the session happens to cut down on some of the discussion.

Strategic priorities, KPI's and the biggest priority all roll in together, but are separated because it leaves fluidity for ample conversation and adapting the  agenda.

Two -Day Strategic Planning Session (Most common + Recommended) 

We recommend two full days for most organizations.

The reason we don't believe an organization of the above size should use a shorter agenda for their strategy meeting is that there are too many essential conversations that need to be had.

At that size, your organization needs to be fully aligned from top down and bottom up, and should consider more fully the internal and external environment, current challenges and risks, and align the plan to your long-term vision, mission and values.

That alignment takes time, but it's needed because it will serve as a guide for the other members of the team that aren't participating in the strategic planning session. 

Here's a graphic representation of the strategic planning agenda. 

DAY 1: 9:00 am-5:30 pm

Day 2: 9:00 am - 5:00 pm

Three-day strategic planning meeting agenda

If you have 3 days for strategic planning, we still use the two-day agenda as the foundation, but we add a couple of key conversations that vary depending on the organization.

That said, the 3rd day is always focused on execution. 

We typically break up the day into 90-minute alignment areas for problem-solving and alignment. 

We also use the time to dig deeper into action plans.

For example:

After going through the strategic planning process over 3 days, your team should be aligned and clear on the most important parts of your strategic plan. 

As you implement your plan, there will certainly be issues that arise where you need to discuss again and re-align. 

In addition to facilitating strategic planning sessions, we also support strategic plan implementation through coaching, accountability and training. 

Learn more about our how our strategic planning consultants can help you with the implementation of your strategic plan.

While the first phase of in-person offsite facilitation is usually completed in two 8-hr working days, we recommend splitting this up online to optimize engagement and to reduce screen fatigue. We recommend holding 5 x 3hr sessions, roughly one week apart. This allows enough time to take a deep dive into the work each session, with space for creative thinking, reflection and any homework between each session. 

For example:  

• While we recommend holding virtual sessions one week apart to allow for information digestion and homework time, you may wish to hold the sessions closer together or further apart, depending on your organizational needs
• While we recommend 3-hour sessions because it’s long enough to dive into the deep work, and short enough to hold attention spans, you may wish to have shorter or longer sessions, depending on scheduling needs for your team (ex: 6x 2.5hr sessions, or 4x 4hr sessions)

Tools & Resources to Enhance Participation & Engagement 

In addition to our agenda, we utilize several tools and resources to help enhance participation and engagement within virtual strategy meetings. 

While there are abundant options to consider, some of our favourites include:

• Zoom – This is a great platform to host strategy meetings as it allows the facilitator to see multiple participants at once in a grid view, to share their screen, utilize breakout rooms for small group discussions, to incorporate polling, text chat, and other functionalities
• Liberating Structures – These are techniques and activities to help boost engagement and inclusion within group meetings and are considered a best practice within adult learning
• Mentimeter – This platform allows meeting hosts to poll participants, generate group word clouds, and obtain real-time data from multiple participants at once
• PPT Presentations – It’s a good practice for the strategy facilitator to have a PPT slide deck to help guide the discussions and to provide visual feedback to participants via screen sharing. This will allow participants to both see and hear any key instructions for activities throughout the session. 

Post-work Once you’ve completed your strategic planning process, the planning work is not over. It’s important to make sure that prior implementation that you’ve:

• Solidified your priorities and defined SMART goals  
• Documented your plan in a digestible way (ex:. a PPT presentation or PDF)
• Developed a communication plan to share and cascade your strategy throughout your organization 
• Booked a time with your strategy leadership team to create your implementation plan 
• Set up a system to track and monitor your progress

If you want to learn to how to facilitate a strategic planning session, you can check out our strategic planning course where we'll walk you through each step of this agenda to help you achieve alignment with your team. 

If you read this article and you don't want to lead the process yourself, you might want to check out how our strategic planning services can help you get  alignment and clarity with your team. 

Bonus: you get to participate instead of leading the process. Learn more about the eight main benefits of using a strategic planning facilitator for your strategy meeting. 

Want to participate in the meeting instead of having to lead it yourself?

Use a facilitator to keep the meeting focused, on track, and get your team aligned. 

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A Checklist for Planning Your Next Big Meeting

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Proper preparation will save you time.

In theory, everyone understands that preparation can make or break an important meeting. The more work you do before you walk into the room, the more productive and efficient you’ll be. But who has the time to properly prepare? Our checklist makes meeting prep quick and easy—be sure to print it out or save it for later. Each step is described in more detail below. Using the checklist and the principles behind it will ensure that you’ve covered all your bases—and that you won’t be wasting anyone’s time (including your own).

• This story is by the staff at Harvard Business Review.

Partner Center

How to create an effective meeting agenda [+ templates]

Reading time: about 8 min

• Teamwork and collaboration

While canceling meetings is tempting (and you should cancel unnecessary meetings), sometimes meetings actually are the best use of your time. After all, meetings are important opportunities to solve problems, brainstorm ideas, and make key decisions—when done right. 

So how can you ensure your next meeting is worth the time? One way is to include an effective meeting agenda. 

The magic of an effective meeting agenda 

A staggering 63% of meetings are conducted without a pre-planned agenda . Yet the benefits of using an agenda are clear. 

An effective meeting agenda helps:

• Keep the meeting focused
• Reduce time spent in the meeting
• Prepare attendees for the discussion
• Encourage participation 
• Prioritize the most important topics
• Record next steps so attendees can take action 

An agenda is essentially your roadmap for the meeting. It sets the schedule and plan for the discussion, outlines key goals or priorities, lists who should attend, and assigns topics of discussion as needed. 

By planning your meeting agenda ahead of time, and sending it to all the attendees, everyone can arrive prepared and ready to focus. If the discussion veers off track, an effective meeting agenda can help redirect the conversation so everyone stays on task. 

The anatomy of a good meeting agenda

So, what does an effective meeting agenda look like? 

Your agenda should include the following basic information:

• The date, time, and location of the meeting
• A list of attendees who should be there
• The meeting’s goals
• Topics or questions for discussion
• Allotted time for each topic of discussion
• Any notes, documentation, or takeaways from previous meetings
• Assignments or preparation notes for attendees ahead of the meeting

Pro Tip: You could also include a brief warm-up discussion or icebreaker to kick off the meeting. These are especially useful for cross-functional groups, people that don’t meet often, or virtual meetings where natural discussion needs extra facilitation.   

This information forms the building blocks of a productive meeting and helps lay the foundation for effective communication.

How to create a meeting agenda 

Building an effective meeting agenda takes some time and careful planning. Don’t wait until the last minute to throw one together. 

To get the most out of your meetings—and your agendas—follow these steps:  

Collaborate with the meeting sponsor to align goals and objectives

Before you outline an agenda, you need to get clear on what the purpose of the meeting is. Understanding the goals for the meeting will guide what you should discuss and how you should structure the meeting.

But don’t do this on your own. Get input from the meeting sponsor —this is typically the person (or group) who requested the meeting or identified the need for one. At a department-wide meeting, the sponsor is likely an executive. At a daily team meeting, the whole team is the sponsor.

Collaborate with the sponsor to identify the main objectives for the meeting. If the team is the sponsor, get input from each person so everyone is aligned. 

Focus on topics that impact the entire group

Make every minute count by focusing on topics that impact everyone in the meeting. In other words, your agenda should only include topics that are relevant to the whole group. Otherwise, people will disengage and you’ll be less likely to get them to attend and participate in future meetings. 

If there are other topics you need to cover that only impact some attendees, you may want to structure the discussion so those team members can excuse themselves and return to work or save those points for a separate meeting.  

Note the purpose of each topic

Clarify the purpose of the meeting and each topic of discussion. This will help team members understand their role and participate effectively. 

There are three main purposes for a meeting or topic:  

• To share information—This might look like a quick update or informational exchange where some or even most participants are listening rather than sharing. Often, updates are best shared ahead of the meeting so you can use the meeting time to answer questions and align on understanding. If you need information from other team members, make sure they know well in advance so they can come prepared to share.  
• To seek input—Meetings are a great place to gather input and consider insights from a variety of perspectives. But that doesn’t mean everyone will be involved in making a decision. If the purpose of a discussion is just to get input from the participants, make sure that’s clear from the get-go. Otherwise, people may be frustrated if their ideas or solutions aren’t incorporated into a final decision.  
• To make a decision—If the goal of the meeting is to make a decision, clarify that upfront and outline the decision-making rules. For instance, you may seek consensus or simply take a vote. If a consensus can’t be reached, the leader may have the final say. Whatever decision-making approach you want to take, clarify that from the beginning so everyone understands what is expected and how they should participate to achieve the goal. 

Estimate time for each discussion item

Even with an agenda, a meeting can easily get derailed if the discussion isn’t well-timed. Keep your meetings on track by estimating the time for each topic. 

For instance, if the meeting is scheduled for an hour and you have five discussion topics on the agenda, the total time allotted shouldn’t go over 60 minutes. Some items may only take five minutes while others will require more in-depth deliberation. Even if the allotted time isn’t exact, assigning time to each agenda item will help you pace the meeting appropriately and keep the conversation moving forward.  

Use collaboration software to create, share, and house your agendas

Upgrade your agenda game from paper or email to dynamic collaboration software. Collaboration software makes it easy to create agendas in the cloud where you can update them in real time, record meeting minutes, and share your agendas with attendees. 

A visual collaboration solution like Lucidspark provides a virtual whiteboard where teams can not only view and house their agendas but contribute to them as well.   

Include the meeting agenda with the meeting invite 

Finally, when your meeting agenda is drafted and ready to go, be sure to include the agenda with the meeting invite so attendees can look over the agenda beforehand. This will ensure everyone understands what to expect and can come prepared to listen, share, and discuss. 

Question-based agendas

While all agendas should contain the basic information we outlined earlier, how you format the agenda can vary. One popular method is to use a question-based agenda . 

Question-based agendas, as their name implies, outline each topic in the form of a question. For example, instead of listing a topic as “Product features”  you might ask “What features do we need to include to improve navigation?”

By forming your discussion topics as questions, you can more effectively drive the outcomes you’re looking for. Question-based agendas are more engaging and can help you hone in on the meeting’s purpose so your discussion is focused and productive from beginning to end.

3 effective meeting agenda templates 

Craft an effective meeting agenda and save time with shareable, customizable agenda templates. Lucidspark makes it easy to lead productive meetings and get your team on the same page with templates for team meetings, weekly meetings, and weekly agendas. 

Team meeting agenda template 

• Topics/Issues to discuss

Easily share the template with other participants to align on objectives, take notes in real time, and come prepared.

Weekly meeting agenda + workspace template 

Use Lucidspark’s meeting agenda template to plan weekly meetings and collaborate with your team during meeting discussions. 

The weekly agenda template outlines space to fill in your meeting topic, goals, participants, and agenda items. Plus, it includes workspace on the whiteboard to brainstorm, collaborate, and share ideas all in one place.

The weekly agenda template outlines space to fill in your meeting topic, goals, participants, and agenda items. Plus, it includes workspace on the whiteboard to brainstorm, collaborate, and share ideas all in one place. 

Zoom meeting agenda template

Keep everyone on the same page during your virtual meetings with an agenda specifically created for Zoom calls . Lucidspark’s flexible template makes it easy to fill in all the key information you need for a successful virtual meeting, including fields for:

• Session title
• Session purpose
• Meeting password
• Date and time
• Topics to cover
• Action items
• Brainstorm and evaluate

Whether online or in person, meetings don’t have to be a drag. Level up your meetings today with effective meeting agendas that set your discussions up for success. If you're looking for other weekly agenda options, make sure to try our weekly schedule template .

Want even more tips for having more effective meetings?  

About Lucidspark

Lucidspark, a cloud-based virtual whiteboard, is a core component of Lucid Software's Visual Collaboration Suite. This cutting-edge digital canvas brings teams together to brainstorm, collaborate, and consolidate collective thinking into actionable next steps—all in real time. Lucid is proud to serve top businesses around the world, including customers such as Google, GE, and NBC Universal, and 99% of the Fortune 500. Lucid partners with industry leaders, including Google, Atlassian, and Microsoft. Since its founding, Lucid has received numerous awards for its products, business, and workplace culture. For more information, visit lucidspark.com.

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• Project Management

Planning a Meeting: A Step-by-Step Guide to Effective Meeting Planning

Home Blog Project Management Planning a Meeting: A Step-by-Step Guide to Effective Meeting Planning

Effective meeting planning is highly important for the success of any project or initiative. It involves setting clear objectives, ensuring the right people are in attendance, and creating an agenda that fosters productive discussion. 

When executed properly, meeting planning transforms what can be monotonous and inefficient gatherings into streamlined, collaborative events that drive program success. Planning a meeting can be enhanced by going for the Project management courses and getting globally recognized accreditations authenticating your project leadership skills.   

What is Meeting Planning?

Meeting planning is a strategic process that involves the organization of a professional gathering (either in-person or online) where individuals deliberate on specific topics, devise directions toward achieving aimed solutions, or make decisions for steps ahead of an organization or a strategic program. These meetings can come in various forms with varied objectives. They should be strategically planned based on the specific objectives that are expected from the meeting. One can refer to several sources on the internet for a meeting plan example, which can be used as a starting point.

Types of Meetings

Meetings could take several shapes, and some of the prevalent ones include:

Strategic Planning Meetings:  Running an effective strategic planning meeting is crucial for shaping the long-term direction of an organization or project. These meetings bring together executive leadership or strategic teams to discuss and decide on high-level objectives and strategies. Key topics covered include setting goals, determining growth strategies, identifying risks, and allocating resources. The main goal of these meetings is to align stakeholders towards a shared vision and strategic path, fostering coordinated efforts toward achieving organizational or project objectives.

In a scaling tech start-up, a strategic planning meeting sets the growth strategy for the next fiscal year. Attendees, including the CEO, CTO, and CFO, review the previous year, analyze feedback, and assess market position. New goals for customer acquisition, product development, and revenue targets are established, addressing challenges like competition. Resource allocation is discussed for initiatives such as hiring and marketing campaigns. The meeting concludes with a clear direction, specific targets, and action plans for the upcoming year.

Operational or Tactical Meetings: Along with the know-how of how to run a planning meeting discussed above. Organizational or Tactical Meetings form the backbone of daily operations within a company. Regular tactical meetings are essential for managing short-term tasks and executing strategies smoothly. These meetings, similar to Agile Scrum's daily standups, involve resource allocation, problem-solving, decision-making, and progress monitoring. Effective planning is crucial to maintaining focus and productivity.

In IT services firms, we hold daily 15-minute tactical meetings. The Program Manager reviews the previous day's tasks and addresses any obstacles. Each team member then shares their specific tasks for the day, and resources are allocated accordingly. The session concludes with problem-solving and decision-making discussions to ensure alignment with project goals. This Agile-inspired approach fosters a productive environment and adaptability to immediate changes.

Problem-Solving Meetings: Problem-solving meetings primarily focus on addressing specific challenges or issues that a team or organization is facing during the progress of their program. These gatherings offer a collaborative platform to break the problem into workable parts, explore its roots, and brainstorm potential solutions for the problem. Participants collaborate by pooling their knowledge, experiences, and approach to generate diverse ideas and solutions. 

The goal of these meetings is to arrive at a consensus on the most effective course of action, enabling faster and more efficient issue resolution. A well-orchestrated problem-solving meeting can harness creative problem-solving, which enhances team collaboration and stimulates innovation.

Let us say, for example, during the launch of a new software platform, the tech team of a company identified a recurring glitch that affected user experience. The team held a problem-solving meeting, where the team members dissected the issue, traced its root, and brainstormed potential solutions. By tapping into the team's collective knowledge and experience, the team members would be able to design an innovative patch, unanimously agreed upon, that resolves the glitch and improves the platform's overall performance.

Project Planning Meetings: Project Planning Meetings are a significant means for better management and execution of any project. These meetings bring together all relevant stakeholders and enable them to collectively agree upon the project's roadmap, including critical milestones and deliverables. During these sessions, responsibilities are delegated to stakeholders, ensuring that everyone understands their specific responsibilities. In addition, these meetings set the project's timeline, creating a shared schedule that aligns all stakeholders.

Project Planning meetings are generally done at the start of the project. For example, during the initial phase of constructing a new eco-friendly building, a project planning meeting will be held with architects, construction managers, environmental consultants, and client representatives. 

During this session, the stakeholders will agree on key milestones like design finalization, securing permits, starting construction, and completing interior fit-outs. Tasks should be assigned, ensuring each stakeholder knows their responsibilities and a timeline should be created, aligning everyone towards a shared goal.

The planning procedures and requirements might differ based on the type of meeting you're orchestrating, which is where the usefulness of a versatile yet thorough meeting preparation checklist becomes apparent.

Why is Planning a Meeting Important in Project Management?

Efficient meetings form the core of any successful project management endeavor. They promote communication, stimulate collaboration, enable decision-making, and ensure alignment among team members. By implementing a project planning meeting template, project managers can streamline the meeting process, ensuring every attendee comprehends their roles and responsibilities. Enhancing your knowledge in project management through PMP certification will greatly benefit your ability to plan strategic meetings.

Additionally, planning meetings in project management facilitates transparency and accountability among stakeholders. This process helps to eliminate ambiguity by setting clear goals and discussing potential challenges. A well-structured meeting nurtures problem-solving and innovation by providing a platform to discuss ideas openly and constructively. Scheduled meetings also set a regular rhythm for the team, fostering a sense of consistency and reliability. 

Furthermore, integrating stakeholder feedback becomes much simpler when a meeting provides an avenue for open discussions and proactive engagement. So, it can be summarised that meticulous planning of meetings is a non-forgettable part of project management.

How to Conduct a Strategic Planning Session? (Step-by-Step)

Effective strategic planning meetings are vital to the success of an organization or a project. Here's how to orchestrate a strategic planning session as a part of their project meeting plan:

Step 1: Discuss the Goals of a Meeting

Each meeting should be planned to have a clear purpose or goal. Be it is on generating new ideas, making crucial decisions, or discussing project progress, having a defined goal for the meeting helps the meeting organizer steer the meeting in the right direction.

Step 2: Decide a Meeting Committee

Assigning a team to be responsible for conducting the meetings yields the best results for the program's success. And this team is termed as Program Management Office in most of the leading organizations. This meeting committee or the program management office should consist of a meeting leader, a note-taker, and any other roles that are deemed to be necessary based on the meeting's nature.

Step 3: Create a Meeting Agenda

Creating a meeting agenda is an important activity in the process of meeting planning. It serves as a roadmap for the discussion aimed at the meeting. It ensures all necessary topics are addressed. A meeting agenda also assists in managing time effectively. It is recommended to utilize planning meeting agenda examples to structure your agenda.

Step 4: Gather Necessary Equipment and Tools

The meeting organizer or the team should ensure that all the required tools and equipment are prepared to be ready for the meeting. The necessary equipment and tools range from presentation equipment, brainstorming whiteboards, or specific video conferencing platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Cisco for virtual meetings. While planning a meeting template, one should keep in mind that there should be fields that include entries of necessary equipment and tools.

Step 5: Send Invitation and Meeting Agenda to all Stakeholders (Send Prep Materials)

It is recommended that the program team that organizes the meeting dispatches meeting invitations and the agenda to all participants well in advance. Recommended time for sending pre-reads for the meeting is at least 2 days ahead of the meeting. This allows participants to prepare for the discussion, which enhances the productivity of the meeting.

Step 6: Decide the Location of the Meeting

The meeting organizer should select the right location which is able to accommodate all required attendees, and the location should be arranged in such a way that it supports the meeting's purpose. If you are conducting a virtual meeting, make sure that all participants have access to the required video conferencing platform. The location of the meeting should also be given priority while planning a meeting template.

Step 7: Start the Meeting on Time

An important aspect of the meetings to be effective is beginning and ending them at the right planned time. This gesture from the meeting organizer demonstrates respect for the meeting participants' time and helps them maintain focus and be engaged throughout the meeting.

Step 8: Send out the Meeting Summary

After the meeting completes, the meeting organizer or the team should send a summary that includes meeting minutes and action points to all attendees. This post-meeting document should underline key points, decisions made, and actions to be undertaken, along with the target dates. The best meeting summary also includes the next meeting date if a follow-up meeting is required. The meeting summary can also be included in the process of planning a meeting template.

Enrolling in PRINCE2 course is an effective way to acquire the skills necessary for meticulous and result-driven meeting planning.

Benefits of Standardized Meeting Process

Adhering to a standardized meeting process leads to several hidden benefits. It cultivates consistency, ensuring all meetings are productive and abide by the same standards and practices. By planning a meeting template for project planning, we can make sure that all important points are addressed. 

This will be reducing the likelihood of overlooking critical aspects. In addition, standardizing the procedures helps in setting clear expectations for attendees, boosting participation and overall effectiveness.

Boosts Productivity: Adhering to a standardized meeting process can drastically enhance productivity. With a clear structure and agenda in place, attendees can come prepared and contribute effectively, making the most of the allocated time.

Enhances Consistency: The use of a standardized meeting template ensures that each meeting abides by the same set of practices and rules. This leads to a more consistent approach to decision-making and problem-solving within the project team.

Improves Coverage of Critical Aspects: With a well-planned meeting template, project managers can make sure that all significant aspects of the project are addressed. This systematic approach reduces the risk of overlooking critical details or tasks that are essential to the project's success.

Sets Clear Expectations: The implementation of a standardized meeting process allows for the setting of clear expectations for all attendees. This can boost participation and engagement as team members understand their roles and the contributions they're expected to make.

Promotes Effective Communication : Standardizing the meeting process improves communication by providing a clear and organized platform for team members to share ideas, raise concerns, and provide feedback.

Encourages Accountability: With clearly defined roles and tasks distributed in the meeting, each team member becomes accountable for their responsibilities. This can significantly improve task completion rates and overall project progress.

Saves Time: A well-structured meeting process, with its agenda set beforehand, avoids irrelevant discussions and focuses only on the vital points. This efficiency saves valuable time, which can be utilized for other important project tasks.

Best Practices for Planning Meetings Effectively

While we have covered the steps in planning a meeting, there are a few additional best practices to make your meetings run smoothly:

Have a Clear Objective: Every meeting should have a specific and clear objective. This prevents deviation and keeps the meeting on track.

Invite Relevant Stakeholders: Only those necessary for the meeting should be invited. This prevents overcrowding and ensures everyone present can contribute.

Encourage Participation: All participants should be given the chance to contribute to the discussion. This fosters a sense of collaboration and can result in more varied and innovative ideas.

Respect Everyone's Time: Start and end meetings on time, and try to keep them as concise as possible. Long, drawn-out meetings can lead to decreased focus and participation.

Effective meeting planning extends beyond merely setting a date and time for a discussion. It involves meticulous preparation, execution, and follow-up to ensure the meeting is productive and achieves its intended goals. With these steps and practices, you'll be on your way to orchestrating effective and efficient meetings that can propel your projects and organization toward success.

Looking to delve deeper into effective meeting planning and project management methodologies? Check out KnowledgeHut's top Project Management certification programs . We provide in-depth, practical training to help you master these skills and more.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

It is important to have proper planning for a meeting as it helps in setting clear objectives, ensuring that all necessary topics are addressed and that every participant understands their roles and responsibilities. It helps meetings be more efficient, productive, and goal-oriented.

The 5 key elements of a meeting are a clear purpose, a well-planned agenda, relevant participants, necessary equipment and materials, and a designated leader or facilitator.

One should be prepared for a meeting through a set of preparatory activities which involves understanding the meeting's objective, creating an agenda, inviting the right participants, preparing any necessary materials or tools, and making logistical arrangements such as deciding the location or platform for the meeting.

Nithin Kumar Peratla

Nithin, an MBA from IIM Bangalore and M.Tech from IIT Madras,  has 10+ years of experience in product management, within data analytics, cloud, ERP and CRM domains. He works for Cognizant currently and is an adept writer in these domains of work.

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