About Agendas.

by Tom Roberts, March 2016

Meeting agendas are critically important to enable the optimal functioning of our organizations. They are a tool used to share the power of decision making as equally as possible among the membership. Agendas have little to do with how the meeting is moderated; they have a lot to do with how well the attendees are informed about the coming discussions.

Meetings should have agendas.

An agenda is a written description of the reason for calling a meeting. It is a list of items (or at least one item) to be discussed at the meeting. The purpose of meetings is for making decisions and/or for coming to agreements among the attendees. Attendees should be given at least several days to a week to mull the agenda topics.

Usually there is a considerable difference in familiarity with the various discussion topics among the expected meeting attendees. This is where an agenda published well ahead of the meeting date helps to equalize the understanding of the topics, which in turn makes for a more informed and productive meeting outcome. When everyone knows beforehand what is to be discussed, more pre-meeting thought can be put into the agenda topics by all of the meeting attendees.

When there is no published agenda, or when the items on the agenda are of an obscure meaning that is understood only by a select few, then this puts most of the folks who attend the meeting at a disadvantage, since they are hearing the details of what they are being asked to decide upon just moments before having to make a decision about it.

It comes down to a question of power sharing—whether those who call the meeting want to share informed decision making power with everyone who attends, or whether they wish to appear as the “experts” who are merely asking for a rubber stamp for their proposals from the meeting. It is the difference between a formally democratic meeting procedure and a truly democratic meeting procedure. It is the difference between inclusion and exclusion of the majority of the meeting attendees in making decisions.

Agenda topics should be informative

The actual wording of the agenda topics also makes a difference. Topics can be so general and abstract that no one who is not “in the know” has any idea what will actually be discussed. Or they can be specific and briefly explained so that everyone can understand what will be discussed.

Look at any agenda you are presented with, and for each item ask yourself if it truly explains what will be discussed or is simply a placeholder for the “experts” in the group to finally disclose to the group what is to be decided upon. Many agendas have only very broad and nonspecific items listed; this always makes me think either that they are either being lazy in not really telling me what is to be discussed, or that they are trying to hide something so folks won’t have time to think about it ahead of time. Often the latter happens, even if that’s not what is actually intended.

Note that some items on an agenda—reports on projects are a typical example—can be better addressed via an email to attendees rather than as a full discussion topic that takes up valuable meeting time. At least a shared pre-meeting written report rather than an oral report at a meeting, where again, attendees are hearing about something immediately prior to being asked to decide about it.

Setting a meeting date and distributing an agenda are two different things. Some meetings are scheduled far in advance so that everyone who is invited to attend can set aside space on their calendar for the meeting, and so that there is no confusion about the actual date of the meeting as the meeting time approaches. Annual meetings are an example of this, where the meeting is set far in advance before there is a specific agenda, or when there is only a boilerplate agenda such as election of officers, setting opening and closing dates and the like. Boilerplate agendas will often have more current agenda items added to them as the meeting time approaches.

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