Agendas for Meetings
The Confusing Start
‘What is the purpose of the meeting?’, someone asked.
I had joined a meeting, and one by one invitees were joining.
There were 5 of us in the meeting.
We had loosely been informed what we were meeting about by the title of the meeting.
Yet, we had no idea what we were going to discuss.
Once everyone had joined, one of the managers started to introduce the purpose of why we were meeting.
We were all working on different tasks. However, it seems we were all relying on a single spreadsheet of information:
We never knew if it was up to date
We were all trying to find the most up-to-date information
At this point we understood why we were there – to find a way of making sure the spreadsheet remained up to date.
Clarifying the Problem
The manager asked each of us to explain what we were being asked to do.
This was to understand how we were all impacted.
It was decided that to get the most up-to-date information, we would need to:
Design a form
Send it out to all relevant staff
Half an hour later, it was decided we would continue the discussion at the next meeting.
We agreed a date and time for the next meeting, and we all departed.
Slow but Steady Progress
In the next few meetings, we made slightly more progress each time.
It was slow going, however each time we came away with:
Action tasks that needed to be completed before the next meeting
Points that we were going to discuss in the next meeting
I found understanding what actions people needed to do by the next meeting was valuable so we could:
Hold people accountable
Reschedule the next meeting if actions were not completed
My manager was also keeping their manager informed, as it impacted the wider team.
Involving Senior Support
In the latest meeting, the manager included their manager in the meeting and we:
Reviewed the questions on the form
Asked the senior manager about the wording of some of the questions
They decided they would raise this at the next senior management team meeting to finalise the questions.
I came away from the meeting delighted by the progress that was made — despite this starting around 6 months ago.
Lessons Learned
This project has shown me the importance of:
Setting an agenda for meetings
Inviting the correct team members to meetings
Ensuring someone chairs the meeting
Writing meeting minutes
Completing actions before the next meeting
Involving senior team members when needed