Creating a Well-Orchestrated Board Meeting Agenda
The agenda for your board meeting is the blueprint that drives productive meetings and assists your company to achieve its goals. It sets the tone for the entire meeting, outlines the topics to be discussed, and helps ensure that everyone is given the same opportunity to participate.
It’s crucial to distribute the agenda before time so that attendees are aware of what’s coming and are prepared to participate. It also gives your attendees the opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback in advance of the actual meeting. It’s best to have someone with a deep knowledge of your organization’s goals as well as compliance requirements and the current business environment lead in crafting a well-structured agenda for your board meeting. It is usually the founder of the company or chairman of the board.
Start the meeting with an order of the hour and a review of the previous meeting minutes. Include a section of reports from key department or committee heads (e.g. Governance Committee report and Finance Committee report). It’s also beneficial to include an area for older business items (follow-ups or ongoing projects) and new business items (proposals or strategic initiatives).
Don’t go overboard. Too much information can overwhelm participants and derail productive discussions. It is preferential to include more information in a separate document which can be distributed to those who are interested later on, rather instead of cramming the agenda with unnecessary details or lengthy reports. The board chairperson will officially end the meeting after all open issues and new business has been addressed.