While not all meetings are born equal, they have a lot in common. And this is why meeting agenda templates can help you to have more productive and effective conversations.
You don’t need to start from scratch to prove you can organize a successful meeting. Neither break your head figuring out what should happen in a type of meeting you have never been before. You can use a template instead and take it from there.
The less time you spend creating a meeting agenda, the more time you have to work on strategy, presentation, feedback – things that really matter.
But what meeting agenda templates are best? And what can you expect from them?
You can create your meeting agenda templates in different ways. You can re-use the agenda of a previous meeting. You can look online for a free downloable file. Or you can use an online application, such as Remote Workly.
The first option might not make sense for you because it implies you have done it before and are 100% sure your method is correct. The second one comes with the challenge of finding something reliable, flexible, and adequate for your business.
The third option has the advantage to keep your agendas organized and searchable. You will also be able to create your own templates in case the ones available in the app library don’t match your need. Still, it might have a cost, depending on the features you require or the size of your team.
A meeting agenda template will give you a structure to follow. But a good template isn’t an empty table with titles and topics and nothing else. It’s a guide through the creation of an effective tool.
A good template comes with notes, explaining the purpose of each section. It also suggests the best way to present the information, whether as text, bullet points, checklist, or else.
It should always clearly state the objective of your meeting, time and date, and participants. It should also predict plenty of opportunities to share results and define tasks.
Let’s see now some examples of meeting agenda templates, so you can have an idea of how they look like – just be aware these are samples, and they are more likely to have more sections than what is listed below. As you will notice, they usually look like a document, making it easy to download, share online or print.
Lets kick off with a template for meeting agenda if you're remote
Meetings with remote teams have particularities, and your template will remind you of them. There is no physical contact, some participants might have never met in person, so you must allocate time to compensate for it.
Team welcome – Time for your remote team share a quick update about where they are working from and what they are doing.
Your Remote Team Meeting Agenda Template should have a section dedicated to confirming processes. It will ensure everyone is onboard, understand what needs to be done and is aware of their upcoming tasks.
One-to-one meetings can easily become too informal. You both start talking and forget why the conversation was booked in the first place. A meeting agenda template will help you to consider and organize what you need to say beforehand.
Brief overview – Warm-up providing general good news about the company, such as goals achieved since the last meeting.
Understand learnings – Time to listen your team member talk about their recent learning experiences so you can evaluate their growth.
Understand difficulties – Hear about challenging moments and what your team member did to overcome them.
Feedback – Acknowledge their successes and offer constructive feedback about areas of downfall.
The next steps:
Your Normal 1:1 Catchup Meeting Agenda Template should also have sections dedicated to both short- and long-term goals, plus action points for you both.
Customer feedbacks are a sensitive subject as criticism can be taken personally. A template will help you to balance positive and negative comments during the time allocated.
Meeting Objective – Ensure everyone knows the goal(s) of the meeting and what product (or specific feature) will be discussed.
General Feedback - Give an overview of the customer feedback. You can divide it into several bullet points.
Major complaints – Here comes the bad news, but you can use your template to find the best way to present them.
Product Results – Time to give some good news to boost the team’s morale. Your template will suggest the use of metrics to make the benefits measurable.
The next steps:
Your Customer Feedback Meeting Agenda Template will have a section to list bugs to be fixed or features to be improved. It will remind you to delegate tasks and define deadlines during the meeting.
Product Roadmaps can be complex, with many phases and milestones to define and discuss. A template will show you all elements you need to tackle during your meeting.
Product Timeline – Keep your team aware of what is coming by presenting an overview of what will be done and when.
Budget – Make it clear how much money will be allocated and the percentage available to each phase or department.
Key Items – A list of bullet points giving a breakdown of the main milestones your team must achieve.
Research and Resource – A list of all materials available to help the team to implement the roadmap.
The next steps:
Your Product Roadmap Meeting Agenda Template should have a section to present and discuss key areas of concern and prioritization.
You must be objective when talking about objectives. To encourage your team to focus on one specific goal, your template will help you to help you to do the same.
Status Update – Start your meeting informing the effectiveness of the progress made so far.
Main Tasks – Present what still needs to be done to achieve the objective, bullet point after bullet point.
Main Challenges – A list of what might make difficult to achieve the objective and why.
The next steps:
Your Objective Meeting Agenda Template should also allocate time to discuss strategy, plus new tasks and their prioritization, so your team know what is urgent or crucial.
These days, meeting agenda templates are much more than a PDF you download and fill. You can choose to use an online application and take it to the next level.
You will be able, for instance, to create and share your meeting agenda with one click. After the meeting, you can do the same with your notes.
Better than this, you can add tags to organize your searches. You can also create tasks directly from your notes and follow their progress with a quick view at your dashboard. Meaning your meeting agenda template becomes a crucial part of your task management automatically.
Learn more about how you can do it with Remote Workly.