Running a successful business requires planning, interpersonal cooperation, accountability and focus. Addressing problem areas, ideas and reaffirming long-term company goals in an orderly fashion will help foster a more productive business atmosphere. Weekly company meetings, when run properly, can be an effective tool that inspires positive, goal-oriented changes while providing a means to revisit ongoing initiatives. Creating an agenda is a critical process that will ultimately define the direction and topic of discussion in each company meeting.
Create or obtain a “Minutes” document template, using a word processing program. The minutes document should include the persons present at the meeting, date of meeting, topics discussed, issues resolved and issues that need further consideration. Having a team member document each meeting will help you formulate future meeting agendas while reducing time wasted on addressing old or previously resolved business.
Write down new orders of business that need to be addressed in the first weekly meeting. Gather the necessary topic information from each department. Pertinent information can include progress reports and work-flow documentation, for example.
Decide the length of the meeting, participants and pressing topics. Estimate the time needed to discuss each topic. Avoid cramming several topics into the meeting as doing so may reduce the meeting's effectiveness.
Create the meeting agenda using a word processing program. The agenda should include a heading for each topic, task overviews, specifics, time allotments and persons heading each topic. Depending on the complexity of the topics and departments involved, consider relegating the responsibility of creating agenda topics to the respective persons heading each task. Compile the topic specifics and overviews from each department into the meeting agenda.
Provide copies of the meeting agenda to all persons attending the meeting prior to the meeting. Be sure to allow each attendee enough time to prepare for the meeting.
Hold the meeting on time and keep the discussions on topic. Attempt to address all of the agenda topics within their allotted time lengths.
Instruct the person taking the minutes to record the topics discussed and outcomes from the meeting as well as note any topics that did not get addressed or resolved during the meeting.
Provide copies of the meeting minutes to persons that could not attend the meeting. As outlined in Step 1, use the previous meeting minutes to help formulate the next week's meeting agenda.