We’ve all been in meetings that lasted unnecessarily long, right? In business, time is money and while meetings are essential for teamwork, long meetings can be counterproductive.
This is why you need a team meeting agenda. But first, what is a meeting agenda? It’s basically an outline of what you and your team are going to discuss in a meeting, it is more of a path and it is what keeps everyone on track.
When a meeting fails to run well, you will waste everyone’s time and effort. Soon enough it will harm your company’s growth, and of course, we don’t want that. Because I manage my clients’ and team members’ time meticulously, I’ve realized the importance of having a guide for every meeting.
In this post, I will be sharing 5 reasons why you need to have a meeting agenda:
1. To encourage people to prepare ahead of time
Any business meeting’s outcome is predetermined before it even starts. There is little chance that a meeting will be efficient if no one takes the time to thoroughly prepare for it. The key to a successful meeting is preparation, thus it must be approached as such.
To ensure everyone is ready for a meeting, an agenda should be created in advance. By doing this, each person will have time to prepare what they need to present instead of scrambling to find the files during the meeting.
Consider meeting preparation as laying the house’s foundation. Any house constructed without foundations will inevitably collapse or at the very least be dangerous. Instead, the house will stand and last with strong foundations. Meeting preparation is similar to the foundation of a home in that it is invisible, which makes it simple for leaders to place it down on their list of priorities.
2. To keep everyone on the same page
We all know that a remote environment that promotes a feeling of community performs better and smarter. That is why getting your team on the same page is important.
Creating a meeting agenda helps you achieve this because your team needs to be on the same page about current priorities, blockers, budget, costs, and other emergencies. The meeting agenda should include all of these details so that there is no room for confusion among team members.
3. To save time and help reach solutions faster
Many business owners often make the mistake of preferring spontaneous meetings either because they feel they don’t have time or they simply always forget. The problem with this approach is that it leaves room for unimportant or not urgent discussions.
A meeting agenda can help you run a more productive meeting just by saving you time to not talk about things that can be addressed at a later date.
Your team huddles don’t always have to be formal but they have to be planned: a 5 minutes of note-taking would not hurt as much as a wasted 2-hour meeting. I guarantee you that a meeting can be efficient and effective if you have an agenda outline.
4. To keep everyone focused, engaged and motivated
When you have an agenda laid out with your team, it’s like having a mutual agreement about all points that must be discussed. By having this, your team will most likely proceed in the meeting aiming to finish all the topics you laid out.
And in cases when you veer off-topic (which can happen anytime), you can always refer back to the agenda. It’s a simple technique to get everyone focused, engaged, and motivated to complete the meeting and get back to their tasks
5. To help you run a more productive meeting
Your meeting agenda can also be used as a tool for time management. When you write your agenda, you should allocate time for every agenda so that you can determine how much time everyone has for talking and commenting. Systemizing your meetings like this will help the presenter have an estimate of how much time is allocated for them and how much time is left for casual conversations.
Conclusion
With these reasons in mind, why don’t you try creating an agenda for your next team meeting? Better yet, delegate it to your Virtual Assistant. This is a good exercise to maximize your time and slowly build a solid team for your business.
Team OM @ Outsource Mondays
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