Creating a Well-Orchestrated Board Meeting Agenda

Your board meeting agenda will assist you in achieving your goals and help make meetings more productive. It sets the tone of the meeting, outlines the topics to be discussed and ensures that everyone has equal opportunity to take part.

It’s important to send out the agenda before time to ensure that the attendees know what’s to come and are ready to engage. This will allow attendees to inquire about their concerns or offer feedback before the meeting. It’s best to have someone who has a thorough understanding of your organization’s objectives as well as compliance requirements and the current business environment take the lead in crafting a well-structured board meeting agenda. In general, this is the founder of the business or the chairperson of the board.

The meeting should begin by calling the meeting to order, and then reading the minutes of the previous meeting. Include a section with reports from key department or committee head (e.g. Governance Committee report and Finance Committee report). Include an area for items from the past (follow-ups ongoing projects or proposals) and for new items (strategic initiatives or proposals).

Each item on the agenda an appropriate amount of time, but don’t go overboard with it. A lot of information can overwhelm participants and derail meaningful discussions. It is better to put more details in a separate document that can be handed out to attendees who are interested in the discussion afterward, rather instead of filling the agenda with excessively detailed or long reports. After all issues open and new business have been addressed, the board chairperson or meeting facilitator will formally end the meeting of boardroomadventures.com/how-to-plan-a-board-meeting-agenda/ the board and adjourn it.