# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
~ By Royston Morgan

RACI is an acronym that stands for responsible, accountable, consulted and informed.

A RACI chart is a matrix of all the activities or decision making authorities undertaken in an organisation set against all the people or roles. At each intersection of activity and role it is possible to assign somebody responsible, accountable, consulted or informed for that activity or decision.

When you hear these types of comments in an organisation a RACI Analysis may be overdue:

'My boss always overrules my decisions whenever she wants'.

'The approval process for even the simplest item takes so long today'.

'It seems everyone is putting together a spreadsheet on the same data'.

'Things are always slipping through the cracks'.

'I have the responsibility, but not the authority to get the job done'.

Definitions of the RACI Categories

Responsible: person who performs an activity or does the work.

Accountable: person who is ultimately accountable and has Yes/No/Veto.

Consulted: person that needs to feedback and contribute to the activity.

Informed: person that needs to know of the decision or action.

A RACI analysis is useful for:

Workload Analysis: when used against individuals or departments overloads can be quickly identified.

Re-organisation: to ensure that key functions and processes are not overlooked.

Employee Turnover: newcomers can quickly identify their roles and responsibilities.

Work Assignment: allows duties to be redistributed effectively between groups and individuals.

Project Management: allows for flexibility in matrix management situations allowing for the right balance between line and project accountabilities.

Conflict Resolution: provides a forum for discussion and resolving inter-departmental conflict.

Documents the Status Quo: the output from RACI is a simple yet effective method of documenting the roles and responsibilities in an organisation.

How a RACI exercise is done:

1. By identifying the functions and processes within the organisation or department and describing the key activities taking place. Avoid obvious or generic activities such as; attending meetings.

2. By describing each activity or decision using a suitable action verb. Examples: Evaluate, Record, Monitor, Collect, Develop, Publish, Authorise, Schedule, Determine, Prepare, Approve, Inspect, Report, Decide, Write, Operate, Update, Conduct, Train, Review or Plan.

3. When the action implies a judgment or decision (for example, evaluate, monitor, inspect, and review) create a phrase to indicate the primary outcome. Examples: Monitor service desk customer requests to identify training needs. Analyse call statistics to identify product problems.

4. The activities or decisions to be made should be short and apposite and apply to a role or need, not to the specific person currently carrying out the task.

5. Create a matrix with roles along the top and activities or tasks down the left side and in each of the table cells enter the appropriate RACI code.

When the analysis is done and the RACI matrix populated, any ambiguities need to be resolved. The matrix is reviewed and questions are asked of the data pattern to explore what it is telling us. The way to do this is to proceed along the vertical and then the horizontal axes in turn and for each column or row asking: If I find...then what does this mean?

Vertical Analysis

A lot of R's: Is it possible for the individual(s) to stay on top of so much? Can the activity be broken into smaller, more manageable chunks?

No empty spaces: Does the individual(s) need to be involved in so many activities? Are they a 'gatekeeper' or could management by exception principles be used? Can consulted be (R)educed to (I)nformed, or can things be left to the individual's discretion when something needs particular attention?

No R's or A's: Should this functional role be eliminated or have processes changed to an extent where resources could be reassigned?

Too many A's: Does a proper 'segregation of duties' exists? Should other groups be accountable for some of these activities to ensure checks and balances and accurate decision making throughout the process? Is this a 'bottleneck' in the process. Is everyone waiting for decisions or direction?

Qualifications: Does the level of the person fit the requirement of this role? Are too many senior personnel involved for routine decision making that could be deployed downwards?

Horizontal Analysis

No R's: Who is doing the job and getting things done? Are there too many roles waiting to be approved, be consulted or informed. Whose role is it to take the initiative?

Too many R's: Is this a sign of 'over the wall' activities?

No A's: Why not? There must be an 'A.' someone must be accountable for the thing happening - the buck stops with this person.

Too many A's: Is there confusion with too many fingers in the pie? It can also create confusion because every person with accountability feels they have final say on how the work should be done.

Too few A's and R's: The process may slow down while the activity is performed or the procedure may be outdated and can be streamlined if not needed.

Every box filled in: Do all the functional roles really need to be consulted? Are there justifiable benefits in consulting all the roles or is this just covering all the bases?

A lot of C's: Do all the roles need to be routinely informed or only in exceptional circumstances? Too many in the loop can slow the process down.

A lot of I's: If too many people are involved, usually too many C's and I's, it can dramatically slow things down.

Change Management Issues

Developing RACI charts surfaces many organisational issues because it reconciles the three elements of roles and responsibilities:

Role Conception: what people think their jobs are.

Role Expectation: what others in the organisation think another person's job function is and how it should be carried out.

Role Behaviour: what people actually do in carrying out their job.

RACI is a useful tool which can become overused and be a catch all for all types of problems, so be sensible about the level of granularity for the definition of tasks/activities. Take it to a deep enough level that it is meaningful and at a level of that is sensible. Who is responsible for making the coffee is not required. It is also important to stay focused on the original reason for undertaking the RACI exercise and ensure that this goal is achieved. Rather than creating a perfect RACI covering the organisation in exquisite detail be realistic and understand that 80% of the reality of a situation will be more than the organisation ever knew before the exercise was started.
This article is part of a series from a book on popular consulting techniques.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to Do RACI Charting and Analysis: A Practical Guide

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By Royston Morgan RACI is an acronym that stands for responsible, accountable, consulted and informed. A RACI chart is a matrix of all the activities or decision making authorities undertaken in an organisation set against all the people or roles.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to avoid death By PowerPoint | David JP Phillips | TEDxStockholmSalon

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Appreciative Inquiry: A Conversation with David Cooperrider

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Introduction

When you feel included and engaged, do you do a better job? Do you think teams in which people work well together produce much better results? Have you noticed the best ideas often come from unexpected sources? Do you want to work at the top of your intelligence and give the same opportunity to others?

If YES, we have found this is the kind of organization and community that people want to be part of. AND, Liberating Structures help make it happen.

So why is it that so many organizations of all stripes are filled with disengaged workers, dysfunctional groups and wasted ideas?

While there will always be some justification for blaming leaders (or professors and administrators in education), the more compelling and useful explanation is not that people involved are bad, stupid or incompetent, but rather that the practices they have all learned are neither adapted to today's realities nor designed to achieve the ideals listed above.

Unwittingly, the conventional structures used to organize how people routinely work together stifle inclusion and engagement.

Conventional structures are either too inhibiting (presentations, status reports and managed discussions) or too loose and disorganized (open discussions and brainstorms) to creatively engage people in shaping their own future. They frequently generate feelings of frustration and/or exclusion and fail to provide space for good ideas to emerge and germinate. This means that huge amounts of time and money are spent working the wrong way. More time and money are then spent trying to fix the unintended consequences.

Liberating Structures start with something so simple and essential as not to seem worth doing and end with something so powerful and profound that it hardly seems possible.

This website offers an alternative way to approach and design how people work together. It provides a menu of thirty-three Liberating Structures to replace or complement conventional practices.

Liberating Structures used routinely make it possible to build the kind of organization that everybody wants. They are designed to include everyone in shaping next steps.

Liberating Structures introduce tiny shifts in the way we meet, plan, decide and relate to one another. They put the innovative power once reserved for experts only in hands of everyone.

This alternative approach is both practical and feasible because Liberating Structures are quite simple and easy to learn. They can be used by everyone at every level, from the executive suite to the grassroots. No lengthy training courses or special talents are required. Mastery is simply a matter of practice. LS routinely unleash a vast reserve of contributions and latent innovations waiting to be discovered.

Every person interested in leading change-in schools, hospitals, foundations, agencies, and businesses-can use Liberating Structures to generate innovation and great results.

Liberating Structures are easy-to-learn microstructures that enhance relational coordination and trust. They quickly foster lively participation in groups of any size, making it possible to truly include and unleash everyone. Liberating Structures are a disruptive innovation that can replace more controlling or constraining approaches.

Click on any Liberating Structure below.

Leaders know that they would greatly increase productivity and innovation if only they could get everyone fully engaged. The challenge is how. Liberating Structures are novel, practical and no-nonsense methods to help you accomplish this goal with groups of any size.

Liberating Structures spark inventiveness by minimally structuring the way we interact while liberating content or subject matter. Very simple constraints unleash creative adaptability, generating better than expected results. Individual brilliance and collective wisdom are unbridled. Such a dramatic shift cannot be THAT simple, engaging, and powerful but it is. Read Getting Started if you are ready to liberate yourself.

By design, Liberating Structures distribute control so that participants can shape direction themselves as the action unfolds.

Learning Events

Immersion workshops are a great way to get started. Like a foreign language immersion course that temporarily relocates you away from a familiar culture, a LS immersion experience is a very effective way to learn. There are no presentations, facilitated discussions, status reports, brainstorming sessions, or open discussions. Only Liberating Strucutres arepracticed. Organizing a workshop for people in your working group can accelerate "fluency."

Check out News and Events for more immersion workshops and LS User Group meetings. Subscribe to LS News & get access to archives here.

Liberating Structures are immeasurably practical. Our world is increasingly complex, interdependent, and culturally diverse. Many of our most pressing challenges cut across geographic, cultural, and technical boundaries. Simple methods that help us work together productively are central to making progress.

Helpful Analogies
Like Wikipedia, LS create simple rules to guide and liberate everyone's contributions. Wikipedia's must-dos and must-not dos specify how anyone can write articles, edit content, reach consensus about the facts, and share with attribution. This structure makes it possible for a diverse community to generate and sustain accurate content that compares favorably with professionally edited encyclopedias. Like Wikipedia, LS is a disruptive innovation in regard to how we engage people in organizations.

Like improv jazz, LS sparks freedom that arises from shared understanding of simple rules. Great jazz comes from playing creatively within the context of melodic and harmonic structure. Like water in a river, LS takes the shape of the banks that it touches: adapting a similar pattern at every scale and in each local setting.

Below: watch this inspired video by Professor Arvind Singhal talking about liberating education and the role of changemakers. UnScripTED: Liberating Structures

More from Arvind Singhal on adpating Liberating Structures to virtual online interaction via Zoom... with 60 participants from 15 countries.

Simple Ways to Engage Everyone on Zoom: Learn Several Liberating Structures in 30 minutes from Media Changemakers on Vimeo.
Unscripted #2 Liberating Structures with Dr. Arvind Singhal from Media Changemakers on Vimeo.
Lisa Gill is a fabulous writer and top drawer interviewer. Her Leadersmorphosis series dives deeply into self organizing @ work. Put your ear to this interivew she conducts with Henri and Keith.

Below, enjoy scenes from the LCJP Restorative Justice Summit. Liberating Structures were used to organize a three day event full of learning, designed to advance the Restorative Justice movement. Restorative Justice (RJ) aims to create communities in which people feel safe by carefully structuring opportunities for offenders to make amends and victims to regain their personal power. Restorative Justice practitioners found Liberating Structures to be highly structured, liberating better than expected results.

2012 CO RJ Summit Video from LCJP on Vimeo.

LS were used to design the Transformation of Nursing summit. Coalitions from all 50 states and DC came together to advance the cause.

For the United Nations ITC-ILO, Henri and Keith offered a Liberating Structures immersion workshop and follow-up consulting sessions. (The Centre is in Turin Italy.) The focus was how to organize for promoting decent work and sustainable development by not over-helping but rather facilitating networked self-organization.

Ten Principles

While the individual LS microstructures are powerful separately, they function as an interrelated set which can transform an entire organization. The LS repertoire is inspired by ten liberating principles.

When we decide we belong together, LS principles help to guide behavior and leadership actions. Detailed descriptions here.

The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures book! Preview and buy on Amazon. The color paperback ($49.95 USD), black&white ($19.95 USD) and e-book are now available on the Amazon website. Amazon offers deep discounts and free shipping to some customers.

The development team at Holisticon is happy to announce that the Liberating Structures App is now available in the Google Play and Apple App Stores. A deep bow to their creative genius. Happy downloading!

Audio: A very playful Brave New Work podcast with Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans. On Liberating Structures with Lorenz Sell of Sutra and Keith. Lorenz asks the deepest questions about collective intelligence, generativity, and complexity science. (50 minutes) Coaching Zone Podcast with Keith and Dr. Krister Lowe. The focus is on how leaders and teams can develop more productive habits with LS. [45 minutes] Radio Interview with Meisha Rouser, organizational psychologist. The focus is on groups working at the top of their intelligence and imagination. And a third podcast interview with Amiel Handelsman that dips into specific LS microstructures and their use by groups to generate innovative cultures. [60 minutes].

Check out Falling Off the Horse while faciliating & leading with Liberating Structures. This article by Keith McCandless describes a personal path forward. It includes what is possible to stop doing when LS is integrated into your practice.

LS are inspired by complexity science. Listen to this entertaining RadioLab program on Emergence to learn about some of the underlying concept of complexity science.

LS User Groups (inventing and enlivening a new way to organize) Open Letter from a Grateful Student to All Educators
Rhapsody for Strings!

Below: early LS users and co-developers in Latin America, Europe, Canada and the USA.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When you feel included and engaged, do you do a better job? Do you think teams in which people work well together produce much better results? Have you noticed the best ideas often come from unexpected sources? Do you want to work at the top of your intelligence and give the same opportunity to others?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I am thrilled to announce a call for proposals for the 2019 World Appreciative Inquiry Conference. We are planning this exciting conference for March 19-22, 2019 in the lovely city of Nice, France. Walking in the steps of U.S., Nepal, Belgium and South Africa, France will be the host of the next World AI Conference. I look forward to us gathering together in France - a country knowing a lot about revolution.. and now oriented toward positive revolution ! There, we can join as a community...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
WAIC 2019 - World Appreciative Inquiry Conference 2019 - Nice, 19 - 22 March

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I am thrilled to announce a call for proposals for the 2019 World Appreciative Inquiry Conference. We are planning this exciting conference for March 19-22, 2019 in the lovely city of Nice, France. Walking in the steps of U.S., Nepal, Belgium and South Africa, France will be the host of the next World AI Conference.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Liberating Structures - 5. Appreciative Interviews (AI)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
liberating structures, social invention.net, microstructures, disruptive innovation, behavior change, collaboration, social invention, diffusion of innovation, strategy, transformation, heuristics, complexity science, emergence

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Meetings are a powerful tool that are widely misunderstood. Like many professionals, I have read and enjoyed many Dilbert comics that point out the pain and frustration of poorly run meetings. In fact, I've been in my share of disappointment meetings. I'll share a short example with you and data showing that just how widespread bad meetings have become. Finally, I will cover the seven habits - the most powerful meeting tips I have used - that will set you up for success.

The Meeting That Never Ended

It was a Friday afternoon in the fall several years ago and I had a meeting scheduled. There were two other people in the meeting who did much of the talking. After about twenty minutes, it felt like the meeting was going in circles. After the sixty minute mark, I became frustrated and simply wanted the meeting to end. Unfortunately, the other participants simply continued to talk past the meeting's stated end time. The worst part? The meeting did not achieve anything particularly significant.

Sleeping, Waste and More: The Plague of Dysfunctional Meetings

Many people share my frustration with meetings. Consider the following observations about the plague of ineffective meetings in the modern workplace:

The typical American professional attends over 60 meetings per month (Source: A network MCI Conferencing White Paper. Meetings in America: A study of trends, costs and attitudes toward business travel, teleconferencing, and their impact on productivity (Greenwich, CT: INFOCOMM, 1998)

Approximately 50% of meeting time is wasted (same source as above)

39% of people attending meetings doze off during the meeting (source: CBS News).

Wow! Whether you are organizing meetings or simply attending them, you owe it to yourself to become more effective at this professional skill. Just imagine the gains you will achieve if you become 1% or 5% better at meetings over time.

7 Habits For Highly Effective Meetings

"A meeting consists of a group of people who have little to say - until after the meeting." ― P.K. Shaw

Some readers may consider these habits basic. I encourage you to ask yourself if you are actually applying these ideas to each and every meeting you attend. If not, you have room to improve. Implementing these habits is a great way to improve your effectiveness fast. If you maintain all of these habits, you will learn that meetings are an effective tool to get work done.

1. Obtain Written Agenda In Advance

Vague intentions to have a discussion on a topic rarely end on a productive note. If you are just getting started with agendas, start with a point form list of topics to be discussed and make sure that material is provided to attendees at least one day before the meeting. For better results, provide background information on the agenda so that everyone attending has the same information.

What about when you are asked to attend a meeting without an agenda? Ask, "Can you please send me an agenda for the meeting so that I can prepare?"

Tip: For frequently held meetings such as a weekly status meeting on a project, you can save time by creating a meeting template. Once you have that in place, preparing an agenda becomes a matter of filling in the blanks.

2. Review The Attendee List

The people in the meeting room make or break your effectiveness. I have been in MANY meetings where the key person - a manager or executive - is not present. As a result, no significant decisions can be made.

For Meeting Organizers: limit the number of people attending the meeting. The purpose of meetings is to make decisions and get work done. For the most part, meetings are not the best way to simply share information (exception: meetings are helpful to share sensitive information)

For Meeting Attendees: read the attendee list before you walk into the room. Do you see any unfamiliar names? If so, consider looking them up in your organization's directory (or on LinkedIn). Surprises are not your friend when it comes to meetings.

3. Manage The Meeting By The Clock

Watching the clock is important in an effective meeting. When nobody takes charge of managing time, it is easy to become careless and unfocused. Remember - when people attend a meeting they cannot do anything else. Make the time count!

For Meeting Organizers: starting the meeting on time and ending on time (or a few minutes early!) will quickly enhance your reputation as an organized person. If you are running a large or complex meeting, consider asking a colleague to serve as time keeper. If managing meetings to the clock is challenging for you, the parking lot habit (see #4 below) will be a game changer!

For Meeting Attendees: start by arriving early at the meeting (I suggest 5 minutes for in person meetings and 1-2 meetings for conference calls). That means avoiding back to back committments on your calendar whenever possible.

4. Use The "Parking Lot" To Manage Off Topic Discussions

The first time I saw a meeting facilitator use a parking lot, I was impressed. This helpful device performs two useful functions. First, it serves to keep the meeting focused on the stated agenda. Second, the parking lot acknowledges important points raised by attendees.

Warning: The Parking Lot habit must be combined with the Follow Up habit if you wish to be truly effective. Otherwise, you are likely to gain a reputation for simply making a show of acknowledging other people.

As a meeting organizer, here are a few steps to use the parking lot concept.

1. At the beginning of the meeting, explain you expect everyone to focus their discussions on the agenda. Further, explain that this rule will help the meeting stay productive and end on time.

2. Keep the meeting agenda document in front of you as a guide.

3. Go through each agenda item

4. Monitor and contribute to the discussion

5. When someone raises an interesting point that does not relate to the agenda, say the following: "Thank you for that point, Tim. However, Microsoft Visual Studio tools go beyond the purpose of this meeting. Let me write down that item in the parking lot and I will include it in the meeting notes that I will send out by email so we can explore that point at the right time."

5. Prewire Important Points and Decisions

From time to time, major decisions will be discussed in meetings. It could be a decision on which projects to fund or which projects to cancel. Serious decisions like this require the pre-wiring habit. In essence, you communicate with people one-on-one before the meeting about the decision before the meeting occurs. While time consuming, this approach increases your chances of success (and avoids surprises other meeting attendees).

Tip: For an extended discussion of the pre-wire concept, I recommend the excellent Manager Tools podcast: How to Prewire a Meeting.

6. Take Notes For Yourself

Taking notes in meetings is an essential skill yet I am often struck by how often people forget to do it. The key reason to take notes in a meeting is to record any questions or assignments that have been directed to you. Let's look at how attendees and organizers can act on notes.

Take notes in a paper notebook (e.g. a Moleskine notebook or something similar) rather than using a computer, tablet or other device. Even if you have fantastic abilities to focus on the meeting, other people may assume that you are "catching up on email" instead of paying attention to the meeting if you take notes on a computer.

Taking notes for Meeting Organizers: if you plan to send minutes or a summary of the meeting to attendees, say this at the start of the meeting and explain what you will include. Sending out meeting minutes, even a few paragraphs or bullet points, is a best practice.

Taking notes for Meeting Attendees: bring a copy of the agenda and use that document to guide your note taking. Focus on the decisions made in the meeting and items that require further investigation or action on your part.

7. Follow Up On The Meeting

The art and science of follow up is vital professional habit and it also matters in the context of meetings. When it comes to meeting tips, following up in a timely basis is a great way to manage stress and make a good impression on others. For the best results, I suggest following up (e.g. making a phone call, writing an email etc) the same day as the meeting. For very important matters, make a note on your calendar or task management tool of choice to continue following up until you reach a resolution.

Question for the Comments:

What is the worst meeting you have ever been in?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Meetings are a powerful tool that are widely misunderstood. Like many professionals, I have read and enjoyed many Dilbert comics that point out the pain and frustration of poorly run meetings. In fact, I've been in my share of disappointment meetings. I'll share a short example with you and data showing that just how widespread [...]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A meeting agenda is the list of items that participants hope to accomplish at a meeting. The agenda should be distributed to participants several days in advance of a meeting, minimally 24 hours in advance so that participants have the opportunity to prepare for the meeting.

In combination with meeting minutes, the documentation that participants receive following a meeting, the agenda is the plan for the meeting and the reported follow-up for the prior meeting.

When you develop an agenda for a meeting that is not regularly scheduled, the following steps will assist you. Later in this article, you will see an agenda template for a regularly scheduled meeting. The two types of meetings share similar agenda items but are not exactly the same.

First, identify whether other employees are needed to help you plan the meeting. Then, decide what you hope to accomplish by holding the meeting. Establish doable goals for your meeting. The goals you set will establish the framework for an effective meeting plan. Make certain that you have not planned more than is reasonably achievable within the time frame of your meeting.

As Stephen Covey said in the "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," "Begin with the end in mind." Your meeting purpose will determine the meeting focus, the meeting agenda, and the meeting participants.

Building an agenda is making a plan for the meeting. You start with the main goal or purpose that you are trying to accomplish by holding the meeting. Once you have decided upon your goal, you need to determine whether you need the assistance of additional employees to plan your agenda. If yes, invite them to join you in making your meeting agenda usually by email or text so as not to create the need for an additional meeting.

After determining your overall goal, you, or your team, need to make the following decisions. In addition to the purpose or goal of the meeting, each of these items appears on the meeting agenda.

Needed participants for the actual meeting,

The items that need discussion or action that will lead to the accomplishment of the goal or purpose,

The amount of time that you anticipate the group will need for the discussion of each item,

A date and time for the meeting,

A suitable location, that will hold all participants comfortably, for the meeting,

Pre-work for the meeting. This will include any reading, documentation, data, meeting minutes from a prior meeting, or any other preparation that will make your actual meeting successful. This preparation should be attached to the meeting notice and agenda when you distribute them to invited participants.

In addition to the above decision items, standard meeting agenda items should include:

Review the meeting's purpose, agenda, and expected outcomes and product.

Review the minutes of the prior meeting.

Review participants' progress on commitments and action items made at the prior meeting.

The note taker or leader needs to review the commitments made by participants during the current meeting as a final agenda item.

Once you have decided that a meeting is necessary to accomplish your goal, you need to develop the list of participants.

Not every employee can or should participate in every meeting, but inviting the right participants will enhance your likelihood of success.

Determine your participants for either a one time or brief series of meetings or for a regularly scheduled or ongoing meeting by asking yourself questions such as the following.

Who must own the solution the group develops?

Who owns the process the group is discussing?

Who needs to know the information you are distributing?

Who can provide data and facts to guide decision making?

Who has experience or expertise to share with the group?

Who must support the implementation of any solutions or tasks?

Who must provide permission or resources to accomplish the meeting outcome?

Who might oppose the implementation of any solutions or direction?

Not every meeting needs a custom developed agenda. Most employees have regularly scheduled meetings for their departments or workgroups. You also have teams and projects in which you participate.

An ongoing project may not require a newly developed agenda for every meeting, but your team will be well served by adopting a standard approach to your meeting.

The regularly scheduled employee meeting is divided into three segments for which each has standard agenda items: Informational Items, Action Items, and Forward Planning.

Write out any agenda items that are informational for every meeting. For example, the manager updates the group on the outcomes of the senior management meeting.

Place on the agenda any items that you expect the group will want to review at every regularly scheduled meeting. For example, performance to budget for the time period and the identification of cost savings and continuous improvements the group plans to achieve.

Place on the agenda any items that the group wants to plan for or prepare for in advance. For example, the short-term goals for the next month or the need for coworker assistance on upcoming assignments.

If you follow these guidelines when you develop your meeting agenda, you enhance the probability that your meeting will produce results.

Use this sample agenda for a regularly scheduled meeting to ensure that your meeting produces the results you seek.

Warm-up and greetings. Consider a brief icebreaker depending on how frequently the group meets.

Review the meeting's purpose, agenda, and expected outcomes and product.

Review the minutes of the prior meeting.

Provide appropriate departmental and company information that the team needs.

Review progress on action items, action plans, and commitments. Review group progress on goals.

Discuss and make decisions about the agenda items for this meeting.

Identify next steps.

Identify the purpose, outcome, and agenda for the next meeting.

At the end of the meeting, the note taker should review the commitments made by people during the meeting.

Identify any assistance needed from people not in the group and assign participants to make contact.

Determine who outside of the meeting participants needs to know what and decide how you will accomplish the communication.

Send minutes out within 24 hours of the meeting or immediately if the note taker took the notes electronically (the norm).
More Related to Holding Effective Meetings

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to Develop a Meeting Agenda That Will Yield Your Desired Outcomes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A meeting agenda is the list of items that participants hope to accomplish at a meeting. The agenda should be distributed to participants several days in advance of a meeting, minimally 24 hours in advance so that participants have the opportunity to prepare for the meeting.