How to Create Better Board Agendas?

An effective way to run a board meeting is to ensure the organizer is well prepared with the meeting agenda. So, what are the peculiarities of the board meeting agenda? Here is more about it. 

The characteristics of a board agenda

Board meetings are part of the corporate culture. All meetings have an agenda for discussion and are a great way to ensure you and your team are on the same wave. The meeting chair prepares an agenda, which is already sent out with the invitation. In practice, invitations to works council meetings often still contain standard agendas with the same items on the document.

This document should describe the upcoming topics and cases so precisely that every works board member can still look up legal assessments, speak to those affected, or read through written material. Of course, it is always better not to discuss and decide on a new item on the agenda in a hurry but rather, if necessary, to convene another works board meeting at short notice and use the time in the meantime for preparation.

How to create a valuable board agenda?

You should adhere to some common rules to create an efficient board agenda. They are as follows:

    • Take the optimal number of questions for discussion. The golden rule is less is more. If you have 10 questions, and all of them need to be discussed in an hour, you will most likely not meet the deadline, and the participants will have a feeling of chaos in their heads.
    • Check the questions for relevance to the purpose of the meeting.
    • Arrange the questions in the correct sequence: Easy – to the beginning. Lay the rhythm – easy, complicated, easy, complicated. It doesn’t have to be the same rhythm. But the very principle of alternating the change in the complexity of points for discussion must be taken into account. Difficult questions load the mind. If we collect them in one heap, we risk losing efficiency simply due to overload.
    • Consider time to change activities. Yes, we all know that switching takes time. It is not only the time to shift your eyes to the following line of the agenda but also to switch thinking. The document should be no more than what can realistically be accomplished. The time required for the individual points and the speakers must be considered beforehand.
    • Set aside time for possible distractions.

Making an agenda in a board software is easier

The board software is a digital platform designed for systematization and automation of the activities of the collegial bodies. The service ensures a secure data repository, file-sharing, and reliable collaboration of the board members. Besides, the software can simplify document management procedures. 

The system can automatically form an agenda for your board meeting. Special agenda-setting tools are designed to help you have productive meetings without wasting precious time repeating the same topic repeatedly. The board software has advanced capabilities for building folders-categories, schemes (categories) for accessing information, orderly storage of documents, support for versioning, etc. Agenda items can be marked with different statuses or converted into tasks. You can attach already created tasks and documents to the agenda. There are templates to create documents in the system, in which data is substituted automatically.

After the registration of the incoming document, further work of the performers can be conducted entirely in electronic form, preventing the loss of the original. Based on the document review results, the secretary or the head himself forms instructions on the document, specifying the executors and deadlines. 

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