Your agenda for board meetings will help you achieve your goals and make meetings more productive. It sets the tone for the entire meeting, outlines the topics to be discussed and helps ensure that everyone has equal chance to be involved.
It’s crucial to distribute the agenda in advance to ensure that the attendees know what to expect and are ready to interact. This allows attendees to have questions or feedback prior to the meeting. It is advisable to have someone who has a thorough understanding of the organization’s goals as well as compliance requirements. In addition, in the current business trends, take the lead on making a well-organized agenda for board meetings. It is usually the founder of the business or the chairperson of the board.
Start the meeting by calling the meeting to order and then reviewing the minutes of the previous meeting. Then, add a section for reports from key department heads or committees (eg. Governance committee report and finance committee report). Include sections for old items (follow-ups, ongoing projects or proposals) and new items (strategic initiatives or proposals).
Don’t go overboard. Too much details can overwhelm attendees and make it difficult to have meaningful discussions. It is preferential to include more detail in separate documents and then distribute it to the attendees who are interested rather than overburdening the agenda with excessively long or lengthy reports. After all issues open and new business are addressed, the board chairperson or meeting facilitator will formally end the board meeting and adjourn it.