Meeting Agenda Template

What is a Meeting Agenda Template?

A meeting agenda template is a tool designed to make building an agenda easy. It does this by helping to gather all the elements needed to plan and deliver an effective meeting.

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A meeting agenda template offers a customizable framework that can be shared by everyone who is involved in the meeting. This helps to set a collaborative tone even before the meeting begins.

Because everyone can see and contribute to the template, stakeholders have shared ownership of the meeting process. This increases buy-in, which contributes to meeting effectiveness.

GroupMap’s meeting agenda template includes nine elements to get you started:

Element	What it holds	Mark it and time
Meeting details	When and where the meeting is, and how long it runs.	Set-up (2 min)
Meeting materials	Equipment, anchor documents and pre-reading that has to be in the room before you start.	Set-up (before the meeting)
Attendance	Who is participating and the role they hold: chair or facilitator, scribe, timekeeper, members, guests and observers.	Set-up (2 min)
Apologies	People invited who cannot attend, recorded so the minutes are complete.	For noting (1 min)
Previous business	Outstanding actions, unresolved matters and talking points deferred from the last meeting.	For discussion (10 min)
Reports	Regularly submitted information: financials, team and project updates, committee minutes, commissioned assessments.	For noting, or for approval where a report has to be accepted (15 min)
New business	Matters raised for this meeting: initiatives, new projects and proposals, policy or procedure changes.	For discussion or for decision (20 min)
Actions	Tasks created and allocated in the meeting, the steps behind them, and the decisions to be communicated.	For noting (8 min)
Parked items	Low-priority points, matters contingent on something else, and items out of scope today but worth keeping.	For noting (2 min)

The times are one worked split of a 60-minute meeting, not a rule. The three set-up rows carry no marking because the room is not being asked to do anything with them. What matters is that every other item carries a time and a marking before anyone walks in, so participants know how long they have and what is being asked of them.

Who should use a Meeting Agenda Template?

Anyone responsible for a meeting can use a meeting agenda template. The sections stay the same whether you are running a 30-minute check-in or a 90-minute board meeting; only the items under them change, which is what makes one template worth reusing.

As such, the template could be used by:

• Meeting Facilitators
• Executive Officers
• Company Secretaries
• Team Leads and Managers

It is a great tool to reduce the time burden of meetings while improving participation rates and record-keeping accuracy.

Tips for effective meeting agendas

• Map out and circulate a meeting timeframe that includes the preparation of the agenda and all associated deadlines
• Allocate times for each section of the agenda
• Align each section of the agenda with the action it needs. Make clear whether an item is:
  • for noting
  • for discussion
  • for approval
  • for a decision
• Regularly review and update your agenda to make sure it delivers value to your meetings.

Why use Meeting Agenda Template?

A meeting agenda template makes organizing a meeting faster and easier, without sacrificing attention to detail.

While the importance of an agenda is well-known, it’s often given a low priority. Its preparation can be overshadowed by more urgent matters. It can be allocated to a person who has the time rather than the expertise to deliver an agenda. It can be pulled together ‘on the fly’ and so can lack clarity of process.

A meeting agenda template overcomes all of these obstacles as well as delivers other benefits by –

• Presenting an easy-to-follow structure to which everyone can contribute.
• Delivering a transparent meeting planning process.
• Sharing the agenda building process, thereby reducing the time any one person needs to allocate to its delivery.
• Leveraging the expertise of the whole group in support of the planning process.
• Including documents as attachments, so they are easy to distribute to the group and document control is effortlessly supported.

The meeting agenda template reduces the time required to document the meeting itself. This is because key information and discussion points have already been recorded.

You can also use it to:

• Set clear, organization-wide, meeting standards that deliver consistency between meetings and across teams
• Capture key documents for good governance
• Track outputs and decision points
• Make it easier to rotate the meeting facilitator role
• Provide an opportunity for all meeting participants to contribute and feel heard
• Deliver all meetings types including online, hybrid, and asynchronous
• Build a psychologically safe meeting space

Meeting agenda examples

Here are three agendas in the shape this template produces: an item, who leads it, how long it gets, and what the room is being asked to do with it. Copy the closest one and change the items.

Weekly team meeting agenda (30 minutes)

A standing team meeting is usually 20 minutes of reporting and 10 minutes of the thing that actually needed the meeting. Cap the reporting so the blockers get real time.

Time	Agenda item	Led by	For
3 min	Attendance, apologies, and any change to the agenda	Chair	Noting
5 min	Actions from last week: done, not done, and why	Chair	Noting
8 min	Progress against this week’s priorities, one minute each	Each workstream lead	Discussion
9 min	Blockers: what is stuck, and what we change	Chair	Decision
5 min	New actions, and anything parked until next week	Chair	Noting

Board meeting agenda (90 minutes)

A board agenda doubles as a governance record, so every item needs its marking set in advance and the minutes have to match. This is the version that stretches the elements furthest: everything except meeting details and meeting materials, which live in the header and the pre-reading pack rather than on the running order.

Time	Agenda item	Led by	For
5 min	Welcome, attendance and apologies	Chair	Noting
5 min	Declarations of interest	Chair	Noting
5 min	Minutes of the previous meeting	Chair	Approval
10 min	Previous business: matters arising and outstanding actions	Chair	Discussion
15 min	Finance report and year-to-date position	Treasurer	Approval
15 min	Chief executive’s report	CEO	Noting
20 min	New business: the one substantive item for this meeting	Item sponsor	Decision
10 min	Risk register review	Company Secretary	Discussion
5 min	Actions, parked items, and date of the next meeting	Company Secretary	Noting

Project kickoff agenda (60 minutes)

A kickoff has to produce agreements, not enthusiasm. Two of these items are working sessions rather than presentations, so give participants a way to contribute at the same time instead of going around the room.

Time	Agenda item	Led by	For
5 min	Why this project exists and what success looks like	Project lead	Noting
10 min	Scope: what is in, and what is explicitly out	Project lead	Discussion
10 min	Risks and unknowns, added independently before anyone sees the room’s ideas	Everyone	Discussion
10 min	Vote on the risks that need a plan now	Facilitator	Decision
10 min	Roles, decision rights, and how we will work week to week	Sponsor	Decision
10 min	Milestones and the first two weeks	Sponsor	Approval
5 min	Actions and parked items	Scribe	Noting

Whichever one you start from, keep the last row. A meeting that ends without allocated actions and a parked list hands the same discussion back to the next meeting.

How to create a meeting agenda template

When it comes to remote and distributed meeting participants, this online template is a real game-changer. It means everyone can be actively involved in the planning process and so completely up to speed when the meeting itself starts.

Of course, with the template populated, moving to the next step of delivering the meeting online can be done seamlessly.

Screen sharing software, video conferencing, and online collaboration tools allow facilitators to deliver inclusive meetings. GroupMap’s meeting agenda template has been designed with this in mind. It can be used with any group type (co-located, hybrid or remote). So it’s a cost-effective way of removing geographical barriers to participation.

The time it takes to complete a meeting agenda template depends on the nature of the meeting and the detail required. Sharing the template with plenty of lead time will allow contributors to work it in with their own schedules. This will help deliver a better quality outcome.

How to use a meeting agenda template

Using the template is a loop rather than a document: build the agenda before the meeting, run the meeting from it, capture what was decided in the same place, and roll what is unfinished into the next agenda.

1. Set the sections and the times. Open the template, keep the elements this meeting needs, and delete the ones it does not. Put a time and a marking against every item. That marking is the single biggest change you can make to how a meeting runs, because it tells participants what is expected of them before they arrive.
2. Invite participants to fill it in. Share the link, code, or QR code and participants join with no account. Anyone can add items to the right section, and pre-reading goes on the item it belongs to as a file, image or link, so nobody is searching an email thread mid-meeting.
3. Run the meeting from the board. Work down the agenda in order and use the step instructions and timers to hold each item to its allocation. For items where you want everyone’s view rather than the first view, have participants add their thoughts independently before the discussion opens, then vote or rank to find where the room actually stands.
4. Close every item with an action or a park. Add action items directly to the point they came from, so the decision and the follow-up stay attached. Anything you cannot finish goes to parked items rather than into the overrun.
5. Export the record and reuse the agenda. Export the completed board to PDF, CSV or Excel and it doubles as the minutes: the discussion, the decisions and the actions are already written down. Next meeting opens with previous business populated instead of blank.

Done this way, the agenda stops being a document one person writes the night before and becomes the record of the meeting itself. If you need the case for spending this effort at all, the argument is set out in why meeting agendas are important.

Related templates

• Icebreakers
• The ESVP
• Lean Coffee
• Mood Wall ice breaker

References

• How to Design an Agenda for an Effective Meeting
• How to conduct successful meetings
• Meeting procedures

Save effort, time and money with GroupMap

GroupMap offers more than just an online digital whiteboard. Its innovative platform is designed to enhance the quality of your team’s decisions. With features that prevent bias and keep facilitation simple, GroupMap makes sure no single voice dominates and keeps conversations productive and inclusive. Its intuitive interface is easy for anyone to use, and its scalable design supports small teams and large groups whether they are face to face or around the globe. Customizable templates and workflows keep discussions focused on objectives, helping you drive actionable outcomes each and every time.