Writing Clear and Direct Meeting Agendas

Want better participation? Tell people what to expect in advance. This is a simple and powerful accessibility practice. (and Free!) Some people need more time and information to prepare for meetings, events, or new situations. For example: Autistic people may have a hard time with uncertainty, and knowing what to expect ahead of time is important. Others with ADHD may need more time to organize their thoughts or plan their schedule. Knowing what to expect can help us prepare and reduce anxiety. This is not just for neurodivergent people. Clear information in advance helps most people focus and participate at their best.... including those who may be new to the company, the culture, or who simply prefer details ahead of time. Example: The Museum of Flight in Seattle practices this by sharing a "Social Narrative" on their website. It is a PDF guide that uses photos and short descriptions to show visitors what they will see, hear, and experience before they arrive. (available in English, Spanish and Chinese) Social Narratives are an accessibility tool developed to support Autistic visitors, but also benefit many others. Examples of how you can apply this at work: - Send a meeting agenda before the meeting - Tell people in advance if you want them to present - Share photos of a venue or check-in location before an event - Give new employees a written overview of their first day, including where to park, where to enter the building, who will meet them, and who to call if they get stuck. 💬 What examples would you add? When people know what to expect, they can show up more prepared to participate at their best. This is your Minds of All Kinds tip of the week. For more cognitive accessibility tips, read my chapter in "Digital Accessibility Ethics: Disability Inclusion in All Things Tech" edited by Lainey Feingold, Reginé Gilbert, MBA and Chancey Fleet. #Accessibility #CognitiveAccessibility #NeuroInclusion [Image description: A square black and white graphic. Headline: "Tell people what to expect in advance." Below the headline is an illustration of a map with a location pin and a dotted route. Three bullet points: "Send an agenda," "Share photos of the venue," and "Tell people if they will be asked to speak." Below the bullets in bold italic text: "What examples would you add?" The Minds of All Kinds TIPS logo]

We don't prepare for effective meetings. But we can save time and boost outcomes with one rule. Here's how: Early in my career, I noticed meetings were often unproductive. 50% of the time was wasted without a clear agenda. So, I started using a 6-step formula to run meetings. 1. Prepare a Clear Agenda ↳ Create and distribute it in advance ↳ Include key topics: progress updates, challenges, tasks, decisions ↳ Set clear objectives for the meeting 2. Focus on Key Updates and Issues ↳ Start by reviewing action items from the previous meeting ↳ Have team members provide brief updates on their tasks and progress ↳ Discuss any roadblocks, challenges, or risks ↳ Prioritize the most important items for discussion 3. Encourage Participation ↳ Actively engage all team members to share updates and insights ↳ Allow time for problem-solving and brainstorming solutions 4. Manage Time Effectively ↳ Stick to the scheduled time for each agenda item ↳ Keep the meeting focused and on-track ↳ Consider setting a time limit for individual updates 5. Document Outcomes and Next Steps ↳ Assign clear action items and owners for follow-up tasks ↳ Summarize key decisions made and next steps ↳ Share meeting minutes/notes with all attendees afterward 6. Follow Up on Action Items ↳ Track commitments and hold people accountable. ↳ Ensure decisions are acted upon to maintain momentum Save this meeting rule: clear agenda → effective outcomes. Implement like a pro → Run meetings like a boss

Mastering 1-on-1 Meetings: A Guide for Employers and Employees Effective 1-on-1 meetings are crucial for fostering a productive and supportive work environment. Here's how both employers and employees can make the most of these important interactions: #For #Employers: Preparation: - Ensure the agenda is #crystal clear. - Give your team at least one week's notice of the meeting. - Send any questions you'd like to discuss in advance. - Never cancel; if necessary, reschedule. During the Meeting: - Treat these meetings as a priority. Your people are important. - Host it in a quiet room away from others. - Spend the first 5 minutes with easy warm-up questions. - Spend a lot of your time listening, not talking. - Don’t forget to celebrate their wins. Praise goes a long way. - Provide a clear action plan with objectives to work on. Post-Meeting: - Ensure all notes are emailed across. - Provide very clear feedback. - Explain how you are going to support - Ensure all objectives are understood. - Book in the next meeting. #For #Employees: Preparation: - Ensure you have questions to go through. - Write down things you want to bring up. - Book out 15 minutes after to digest things. - Stay calm; these meetings are to benefit you both. - Ensure you’ve eaten and are hydrated before going in. During the Meeting: - Take your time; this meeting is for you. - Discuss your wins and areas you are happy with - Provide clear communication on where you need help. - Take constructive feedback with grace and professionalism. - Ask about future career opportunities for progression. Post-Meeting: - Take time to review all notes. - If anything was not mentioned in the notes, raise it. - Provide your honest feedback on how you thought it went. - Implement and action any feedback quickly. - Consistently update your manager on your progression. By following these tips, both employers and employees can ensure their 1-on-1 meetings are productive, supportive, and drive growth. #Leadership #CareerDevelopment #EmployeeEngagement #ProfessionalGrowth

The worst meetings aren't the ones that run long. They're the ones that accomplish nothing in exactly the time allocated. These meetings covertly waste time. But nobody notices that until three more meetings have to be scheduled as follow ups. Most leaders design meetings around activities, not outcomes. They schedule "alignment sessions" instead of "decide on Q4 resource allocation by Thursday." I see this pattern regularly with executives: The VP who runs "strategy discussions" that circle the same three topics for six weeks. The founder who calls "team brainstorms" without defining success criteria. The executive whose "quarterly planning sessions" generate 47 action items but zero clear deadlines. The fix isn't better facilitation. It's meeting architecture that forces outcomes. ➡️ Step 1: Get clear on the goal Complete this sentence before scheduling: "This meeting succeeds if we [specific outcome] by [time]." Not "discuss the budget." Instead: "approve the Q1 budget allocation between marketing and product by 4pm." ➡️ Step 2: Match the agenda to the goal Design your agenda backward from the decision point. For a budget approval meeting: 🔷 5 min: Review decision criteria 🔷 20 min: Present options with projections 🔷 15 min: Test against criteria 🔷 10 min: Make the decision 🔷 10 min: Lock next steps with owners and deadlines Most agendas are topic lists. This is a decision-making machine where every item serves the outcome. ➡️ Step 3: Decide how you'll decide Clarify the decision-maker in the calendar invite. Open by saying: "We're here to decide [outcome]. [Name] will decide after getting input from everyone here." This eliminates the circling meeting cascade. The executives who use this framework cut weekly meeting time dramatically. More importantly, their teams stop treating meetings as theater and start treating them as work. 🔖 Look at your calendar for this week: which meeting would benefit most from this framework? 

If your meeting doesn't have an agenda, it's probably a waste of time. We've all been in meetings where no one really knows why they're there or what's about to happen. Always attach an agenda doc or at least a clear description when you schedule a meeting. Titles like "Project Sync" or "Team Catch-up" don't cut it. A good agenda gives everyone context, shows how to prepare, and ensures the meeting actually moves things forward. Highly unlikely, but if some or all participants review the agenda in advance, the meeting runs smoothly. They come ready with the right information, prepared to contribute instead of reacting on the spot. For you, as the organizer, writing down your questions, objectives, or discussion points also helps. It makes sure you don't forget anything important. Apart from the usuals, this also - Keeps the conversation on track - Pushes the meeting toward clear outcomes - Acts as a record of decisions and action items By the way, it also lets people decide if they really need to attend, or if they can just give input async. That alone saves a ton of wasted time. Most importantly, it shows that you respect everyone's time. You're not pulling people in "just because" you've thought it through and given them a reason to be there. By the way, if you are senior enough, you can even go berserk and be like - no agenda, no meeting. But yes, until then, start setting an agenda in your meeting invites.

Ok, raise your hand if you've ever been the "fuzzy meeting person." 🙋♀️ 🙋♀️ 🙋♀️ I’d schedule sessions with no clear agenda, no defined outcome, basically, “let's chat and figure it out.” I’d leave half-exhausted, half-confused, thinking: "Did anything just get decided? Who’s doing what? Could this have been an email?" Probably everyone else thought that too. Waste of time. It took me a while, but I realized: the problem wasn’t the team. It was me. My meetings lacked clarity + intent. So I decided to get scientific about it. I started analyzing my meeting transcriptions with CoPilot. I wanted to see: - How much time I spent talking vs listening - How often I stated an explicit decision - Where confusion or rambling crept in The results were… eye-opening. I wasn’t just scheduling fuzzy meetings, I was enabling them. Here’s the system I built to fix it: Step 1. Define the single purpose (SO IMPORTANT) Every meeting needs a north star: “By the end, what should people know, decide, or do?” Step 2. Structure the agenda around outcomes List topics → assign a single desired outcome + time limit. Step 3. Prep key points, lead with decisions Skip long-winded context. Deliver the decision first, context second. Step 4. Track your talk ratio Use AI to see if you’re dominating or clarifying. Adjust accordingly. Step 5. End with explicit next steps Who does what, by when. No assumptions. Step 6. Follow up in writing 1–2 bullets summarizing decisions + assigned owners (you can do this with AI). Send within 24 hours. I also send transcripts if necessary. The transformation? Meetings went from draining and fuzzy → purposeful, productive, and trust-building. My coworkers leave knowing exactly what to do, and I finally stopped wondering why work wasn’t getting done. People like me more (hopefully?). Also, generally reduced my meeting frequency by 20ish%. Effectiveness frees us time, who knew. Moral: meetings are time, money, and trust. If people feel like you schedule fuzzy meetings, they'll be less committed. Use those steps to focus more on your clarity and intent. How do you make meetings more effective?

Most meetings don’t fail in the room. They fail before they start… and after they end. A meeting is not a 60-minute calendar block. It’s a process with 3 stages: Before. During. After. If you fix these, meetings become productive instead of performative. 1. Start with a written purpose (Before) If the meeting objective cannot be written in one clear sentence, cancel it. Bad: “Let’s discuss the project.” Good: “By the end, we will decide X and assign ownership for Y.” No purpose = no meeting. 2. Invite only owners, not spectators (Before) Meetings are not webinars. If someone is not: Deciding Contributing critical input Owning an action They don’t need to be there. Fewer people = faster decisions. 3. Share material in advance (Before) Meetings are for discussion and decisions, not silent reading. If people are seeing slides for the first time in the meeting, you’ve already lost half the time. Send pre-reads. Expect people to come prepared. 4. Run the meeting like a decision factory (During) Every agenda item must end in one of three outcomes: Decision made Action assigned (with owner + deadline) Explicitly parked If conversation is interesting but going nowhere, park it. Meetings are not thinking-out-loud therapy sessions. 5. Close the loop fast (After) The real work starts when the meeting ends. Within 24 hours, share: Decisions taken Actions, owners, deadlines What was parked If follow-ups are not tracked, meetings are just expensive conversations. A good meeting starts before the meeting and ends long after it. Preparation creates clarity. Follow-up creates results. Everything in between is just facilitation. Are you running or ruining your meetings? Which one of these tips makes most sense to you? ++++ I try to share practical, direct, no “cute crap" work/career tips. Follow me at Anshuman Tiwari and press the bell icon twice on my profile to get notifications when I post.

One of the simplest tools in negotiation is also one of the most overlooked: The agenda. Too often, people treat an agenda as an administrative detail. A list of topics. A meeting formality. Something sent out just before people walk into the room. In SMARTnership negotiation, the agenda is much more than that. It is the first piece of deal architecture. The real question is not whether you should have an agenda. The real question is: Who should write it? What should it contain? And what happens when you let the other side control it? From a SMARTnership Negotiation perspective, the agenda should ideally be co-created or at least proposed early by the party who wants a collaborative, value-creating process. Why? Because the agenda silently defines what kind of negotiation this will become. If the agenda is built around price, demands, deadlines, and approvals, the negotiation will likely become positional. If the agenda is built around clarity, trust, process, variables, and mutual value, the negotiation has a far better chance of becoming productive. A strong SMARTnership agenda should often include elements such as: Rules of the Game Before negotiating the deal itself, negotiate how to negotiate. How will we make decisions? Who is in the room? How do we handle disagreements? What is the process if we need internal approvals? This step alone prevents a surprising amount of wasted time and tactical noise. Mandate and Scope Can the people at the table actually make decisions? What is inside the negotiation and what is outside it? What is the purpose of the meeting? Establishing Trust Trust should never be left to chance. In SMARTnership, trust is not soft. It is economic. It affects speed, openness, risk appetite, implementation, and ultimately value. An agenda should make room for alignment on intent, transparency, expectations, and behavior. Variables and Parameters Most negotiators enter a room thinking about one variable: price. But strong negotiators know that value is often hidden in payment terms, timing, volume, exclusivity, service levels, risk allocation, implementation support, optionality, data sharing, governance, and future opportunities. The agenda should force the conversation beyond a single-issue battle. Identifying and Splitting NegoEconomics This is where negotiation becomes interesting. NegoEconomics is the asymmetric value between one side’s cost and the other side’s savings or earnings. If one variable creates high value for one side at low cost to the other, you have found real negotiation potential. The agenda should create space not only to identify that value, but also to discuss how to split it fairly. That is one of the biggest differences between traditional negotiation and SMARTnership. That is why the agenda matters. Not because it makes the meeting look organized. But because it helps make the negotiation smarter. #negotiation World Commerce & Contracting BMI Executive Institute

[#careertips ] HOW DO YOU UTILIZE YOUR ONE-ON-ONE MEETING WITH YOUR MANAGER #1on1 session with your manager is actually a luxury. Not all managers are able to invest their time to have a 1on1 session with their team members. If your manager didn't do it then you need to be the one who is proactive asking to have 1on1 session. If your manager asked you to do so, then the next question is what should I prepare? What should I discuss? How to make the session less awkward? These are few tips to help you better utilizing your 1on1 meeting with your manager. 1) ALIGN THE #EXPECTATIONS Even before you set the 1on1 session, you should have discussion to have alignment on what both of you expect as an outcome from the session and what are the conversation should be. [PRO TIP] You need to have balance on 1on1 meeting to discuss BOTH work related AND your own self development (i.e. feedback on how do you think so far, your career aspiration, etc.) 2) BUILD THE #TRUST It is impossible to have an open 1on1 session if you don't trust each another. Giving feedback is not easy, especially in Asian culture. On the other side of the coin, receiving feedback is equally not easy. If we don't have an open mind and trust that the feedback is for our own benefit, we would block ourselves when hearing things that relates with our weaknesses. 3) SET THE AGENDA AND EXPECTED #OUTCOME IN ADVANCED It is important to have clarity on what is to be discussed in advanced and the goal of the conversation before you start your 1on1 so that the conversation could focus on the goal being set. Without having agenda and goal, 1on1 session either would fall into usual business conversation to discuss daily work or a chit chat about non related work but also no tangible values (you might feel that you wasted your time and could do other more important things) 4) #DRIVE THE AGENDA AND BE #PROACTIVE The common perception is 1on1 session is your manager agenda. For me, it is the other way around. 1on1 session is YOUR AGENDA. Therefore, you need to be the one who propose the initial agenda, be proactive, and drive the conversation so that you would be able to get everything you expect from the conversation. Your manager is your coach during the 1on1 session. 5) #COMMIT ON THE TIME Number one reason why 1on1 session is rarely to happen is because people are "too busy". However, we cannot have time if we don't make the time. Therefore, it is important to have a cadence for your 1on1 session (weekly / bi-weekly / monthly / bi-monthly) and stick with the commitment. Clear your agenda if you know you have upcoming 1on1 session. If your manager have a sudden and important appointment so he/she cannot make it then ask for new time immediately, DO NOT just CANCEL the session. Please also do share your experience about 1on1 meeting in the comment below! #fxyanuark

We’ve done five offsites with the whole awork team now, and one thing has become very clear: A good offsite does not mean an empty calendar. Our schedule is actually quite packed. What matters is finding the right balance between achieving something meaningful together and leaving enough slack time to connect on a human level. What has made the biggest difference for us is being deliberate about the whole week. The offsite has a clear goal, a theme, and a design that ties it all together. That applies to the agenda, the sessions, and even the materials we provide on-site to make the experience smooth and enjoyable, like a themed online agenda and a venue map. I’m sharing the agenda format we’ve used across our last five offsites, plus some of the content we give attendees during the week. None of it is overly fancy, but it creates clarity, reduces friction, and helps the whole experience feel focused without turning into a meeting marathon. A few things that have consistently made a difference for us: 1. Start with the goal   Before we plan a single session, we decide what the week is for. Is it strategy and alignment? Better cross-team collaboration? Kickstarting a big initiative? This decision shapes the entire offsite. 2. Give everything a reason to be there   The week has a clear goal, a theme, and a design that carries through the whole experience. That makes it easier for people to understand why they are there and what the time together is meant to achieve. 3. Be ambitious, but realistic   We do put a lot into the calendar. But we try not to overload people with back-to-back sessions all day. Even great workshops lose energy when there’s no room to breathe. So we plan focused content blocks and protect breaks in between. 4. Mix formats on purpose   For a hybrid team, this combination tends to be especially effective: - leadership updates - small group workshops - deep-dive collaboration sessions - informal activities and dinners 5. Leave room for the unplanned moments   Some of the best conversations happen between sessions, on walks, over coffee, or late at dinner. If every minute is scheduled, those moments never happen, and those are often where trust really grows. For me, the best offsites are the ones where you get both: real progress as a team and real time together as people. That’s how we plan offsites that actually work. How do you structure offsites for real collaboration without turning them into pure meeting marathons? #offsite #hybridwork #teamculture #futureofwork #remotework