Meeting Agenda
Your time and your team’s time are valuable. Meetings are important to maintain group communication, but are you making the most of this resource? A meeting agenda, such as those assembled using Docket, can make your meetings better before they start, while they’re happening, and long after they’re over. But what is it?
A meeting agenda is, simply, a document including relevant links and talking points to keep your conversation on track and improve the productivity of your team meeting. On a basic level, it will list the order of business being addressed but can include more or less detailed information based on your team’s needs.
For example, your marketing team may have an agenda that designates what projects you’ll be looking over in your team meeting, along with links to those projects. An operations team may have one highlighting areas for improvement and actionable plans. Regardless of the detailed needs, every effective team meeting agenda will cater to the team utilizing it.
When it comes to assembling your team meeting, agenda templates are an excellent resource. Consistency is key, and it’s much easier to achieve this with a designated team meeting agenda template–Google Doc or Word, you have options. You may find that some even prefer a monthly or weekly team meeting agenda template Excel sheet.
As you experience more effective meetings via the use of top-notch agendas, you may find that you need to adjust your team meeting agenda template. Word to the wise: It’s okay to experiment to find what works. If you meet less frequently, a monthly team meeting agenda template may work best. Your marketing team may also prefer a different format from your sales team, and they may need something still different from the executive team–and a platform like Docket can help you build workflows that work.
Conference Agenda
A conference, though usually grander in scale than your day-to-day meetings, has some features in common. Much like a meeting, when arranging this gathering, you need a conference agenda. A conference agenda, whether for a gathering of salespeople or general employees, helps streamline the process and gives your attendees an idea of what to expect. It also keeps your speakers on track with designated times and topics.
Conference agenda design is an important element to consider: How does this look, and does it flow well? Look at what other companies in your field are doing, if you can, for conference agenda examples. Whether you’re hosting a local or international conference, agenda planning will keep your event operating smoothly while delivering the best possible information.
Using a service such as Docket to help develop your conference agenda can increase confidence that you’re making the most out of your time–whether you have a week-long or one-day conference. Agenda templates are an effective starting point to ensure that your conference agenda design is polished, effective, and makes sense for all attendees. Consider team bandwidth and information-heavy sessions when organizing your conference agenda, as well—when events take place can be just as important as which events you use.
Seminar Agenda
Much like a conference, a seminar is an opportunity for members of your organization or industry to gather and share their experiences and skills. When building your seminar agenda, you’ll want to include a seminar checklist. A seminar checklist should include both specific speakers and talking points, as well as desired breakout sessions, meet-and-greets, and overall objectives.
Consider your goals in hosting a seminar: Do you want to inform, inspire, or create a conversation that carries on for months after the event? A room full of industry professionals opens the door for a plethora of exchanges that can spark growth and foster legacy leadership within your organization. Breakouts and lunch seatings are a great chance to match experts with fresher team members to increase the flow of multi-layered conversations.
Once you’ve gathered your vital information, you can build your seminar agenda with confidence. Using a service like Docket to build out more effective meetings will ensure that you’ve built an effective agenda, meaning that your seminar will reach its full potential. There are plenty of places to acquire organized seminar templates: Word, Google Docs, and other industry leaders all offer polished starting points to build upon. Whatever format you choose, quality planning is vital to optimizing your time at a seminar.
Workshop Agenda
Often more laser-focused than the previously mentioned gatherings, the purpose of a workshop is to develop a single skillset for a particular group within your organization. Some examples could include an SEO workshop for your writing teams, a training session on new software for your operations team, or even a golf etiquette class for your sales team before a tournament.
Regardless of the specific skills, you aim to hone, a clear workshop agenda is key to ensuring smooth delivery of information for your project. Workshop agenda planning can be addressed from many angles, but outlining your objective first is a popular starting point. From there, you can develop a workshop agenda that focuses on these core points.
It’s also important to consider the best way to hold this workshop: Do you want to host a short session or a day-long lesson? Will this workshop be in-office or online? Workshop agenda planning can help you work out what format will make the most sense for each case. As always, a template can help you create an agenda that looks clean and professional. When searching for a workshop agenda template, Excel, Docs, Sheets, and others are equally viable options. Partnering with Docket opens the door for more streamlined, useful workshop agendas overall, delivering the best for your business.
Simple Meeting Agenda
Sometimes a meeting agenda doesn’t need to have extensive bells and whistles: Building a simple meeting agenda can help keep your business meeting on track. A quick Google search will return plenty of agenda examples. For staff meetings, especially smaller teams, simply replacing templated information is more than sufficient.
If you’re building out an agenda for a meeting you’re not leading, you’ll have to understand how to ask for agenda items for a meeting. In this case, it’s best to present the meeting lead with an agenda example that you’d like to base your agenda on and ask them for their items. It can also help to display business meeting agenda samples from other sites to give your coworker a better idea of what itemfs should–and shouldn’t–be included in a simple meeting agenda.
Once you’ve gathered all of the necessary information and feel confident with your format, it’s time to learn how to write an agenda for a meeting. This doesn’t need to be hyper-complicated and can be improved by partnering with Docket to create an agenda that serves your needs. Consider the most reasonable flow of information, what needs to be included, and the format. From there, plug and play the information and any relevant materials, and send them to your team to prepare for the event.
Formal Meeting Agenda Template
For more formal meetings, such as a pitch to executives or a presentation for clients, you may opt to use a more formal meeting agenda. Template sites such as Google Docs can provide some support and inspiration, as can business meeting agenda samples on graphic design or marketing materials sites.
There are plenty of options for filling in and building out your formal team meeting agenda template: Word, Docs, and even graphic sites like Canva can let you fill in and polish your formal meeting agenda to deliver the level of aesthetic professionalism you need when you’re bringing your best.
If you find an informal meeting agenda template that you like, don’t feel limited by the style. You can even adopt a previously used meeting agenda to present the same material to different groups, so long as you change it up. It doesn’t take much to elevate a simple meeting agenda: Template differences typically include organization and font, but you can keep a majority of your content in most cases. Look at sample meeting agendas from high-level firms and other organizations in your industry, and make the necessary changes to take an informal agenda to the next level.
Meeting Agenda Topics
You know how to use templates to build a smooth meeting agenda–but how do you decide upon team meeting agenda topics? Previous meeting notes are a great starting point: Keep careful track of agenda items, examples of good topics, and those you’d like to avoid.
One method involves creating “topic buckets” you intend to use in your next business meeting. Agenda sample buckets could include Information, actions, and discussions. Prioritize items within these buckets to make the most out of your business meeting agenda. Topics within the “information” bucket, for example, may include sharing company numbers or policy updates. Action items could touch on forms employees must fill out soon, a survey coming their way, or tasks for clients. Discussions open the floor on items, such as ways a process can be improved–they’re a great opportunity to get feedback from employees who otherwise wouldn’t know how to ask. For agenda items in a meeting, consider breaking up information flow so that it alternates buckets and provides a more rich discussion.
There are plenty of team meeting agenda examples, and partnering with Docket can help you make decisions about what works for your business.
