When called for a meeting, your average employee’s first question would be, “What’s this meeting about?” And being the host, you should outline the things that would be covered during your 30-minutes or one-hour business meeting with your team. Although there would be room for some modifications, more or less, your agenda should be ready even before sending a meeting invite.
Meeting agenda objectives plays a considerable role in the success of a meeting. If you don’t have one when you are conducting your meeting, stop scheduling one until you understand what an agenda is and what it can do for you.
What Is A Meeting Agenda?
Since “agenda” is a word thrown around loosely in meetings, it seems everyone should know what it means.
For definition purposes, an agenda is your meeting program. It is your list of activities in the order that they are to be taken up.
Now it’s time to consider another equally important question—whether an agenda is used for its true purpose in a meeting or if it’s become a formality.
In your company or department meetings, is an agenda something that is expected but not necessarily accurate? Or do you use an agenda for the right reasons?
What Is The Purpose Of A Meeting Agenda?
Always be guided that the purpose of an agenda is to give everyone participating an outline of what’s to happen during the session. Thus, people involved with a task can prepare for it. For instance, speakers would be aware of when they need to start and how much time they have to complete their activity.
Sharing the agenda before the meeting and abiding with it during the meeting can build everyone’s confidence that it will be a worthwhile and productive gathering.
What Are Meeting Objectives And Agenda?
There are multiple types of meetings, such as decision making, team building, collaboration, status updates, etc. Each kind of meeting is driven by an objective—what needs to be accomplished.
Still confused and wondering, “What are the objectives of a meeting?”
Note that purpose is different from objective—while purpose seeks to explain “why,” the latter is centered around “outcome.” A few things need to be included to ensure that the meeting is productive, such as date, time, location, target attendees and set up (business, casual, etc.).
Note that your meeting objectives should support the purpose. Usually, meeting objectives are:
Inform
For the most part, this kind of meeting is one-way information dissemination from the organization’s leaders or the meeting host.
A meeting with the goal of informing its participants would use this time to make announcements, share news, discuss changes, and update the team about any upcoming plans or projects.
At the end of this meeting, the floor is left open for everyone to ask questions, make suggestions, or get feedback.
To Come Up With Solutions
If the main agenda addresses an ongoing or probable business challenge, then the meeting’s main objective is problem-solving.
This is when participants brainstorm, do root-cause analysis, and offer several possible solutions for the problem. A meeting to develop solutions would take advantage of unique minds, skill sets, tenure, and experience to create a logical solution agreeable to everyone.
To Make Decisions
This is usually when the upper management discusses business-related decisions. Only the concerned participants are invited when the agenda is to come up with a unanimous decision.
To Resolve Internal Conflicts
Disagreements and differences are common in an organization, and unresolved conflicts can negatively impact relationships and the workplace environment.
A meeting can be called to resolve these conflicts, with the primary objective of the parties involved being to talk about the situation and come up with an understanding that is fair to all. The meeting agenda objectives would be to ensure that work is prioritized and differences are settled.
To Negotiate
Business deals, new suppliers, price increases are some business concerns that need a sit-down meeting.
How Do You Write An Objective For A Meeting?
Having a clear understanding of the meeting’s purpose and outlining its objectives before the meeting cannot be emphasized enough. If you struggle with certain aspects such as writing the goals, here are a few suggestions:
- Investing time to gather information so you can identify objectives.
- Be as specific as possible—get the right facts, collaborate with individuals on your team who have insight into the issues at hand, and keep things on a need-to-know basis.
- Have enough information, examples, or specifics to support your objectives.
- Ask the participants for any inputs.
- Set a mindset that by the end of the meeting, you should have specific results to expect.
Still feeling a little overwhelmed and uncertain? Why not get some help?
What if we told you that a meeting app called AgreeDo can help you write your meeting agendas, create the minutes afterward, and even share them with all the participants? Even better is that all the agenda-related changes and suggestions are recorded and can be tracked through the app.
This becomes a win for everyone because it can cut down the length of the meeting. And the benefits don’t end here.
You will have the ability to record assignments and share them with your meeting participants. This is a great way to set accountability and also an excellent tracking tool for progress. You can mark tasks off as they are completed!
AgreeDo simplifies and handles the mundane, like sending progress updates to all the participants. A single mouse click can have AgreeDo do everything for you.
Decision-making has never been easy, thanks to AgreeDo.
What Are 5 Things You Would Include In A Meeting Agenda?
Meetings are important, but without a proper agenda, they are a waste of time. This is where agendas matter.
Here are five non-negotiable elements that should be included in your meeting agenda.
- Information Elements – this is the actual information that you want to share with your participants.
- Action Items – these are the list of tasks that needs to be completed within a timeline. This includes the owner of the task and the status of completion.
- Discussion Topics – the collaborative elements in your meeting where input and feedback are needed from the entire team.
- Open Forum – a time dedicated for questions, clarifications, and feedback. This is also where questions can be raised and parked for the next meeting.
- Review – this is a summary of everything that was discussed at the meeting. Confirming objectives of meeting agenda and the affirmation that the purpose of the meeting was fulfilled happens on this last part.
Conclusion
Always have an agenda and objectives for effective meetings. A meeting that respects everyone’s time and input will be a productive gathering where everyone is engaged to share their feedback and pitch in to achieve the organization’s goals.