A productive meeting can’t be achieved without a well-planned agenda. The agenda for the board meeting sets the tone and ensures the board meets their goals.
It is important to understand the best practices for agenda planning, whether you are an administrator or a board member. This will help you to conduct a successful meeting. This article will help to avoid the most common pitfalls which can derail the productivity of the board meeting.
Too Many Topics to Discuss
The attempt to cover too many topics during a single meeting can lead to unorganized discussions, less time for each item and a decrease in the effectiveness of the meeting. To avoid this, prioritize some high-priority topics that are relevant to the purpose of your meeting. If you need to, you can delay or assign less urgent items to a future meeting or a committee to further explore.
Insufficient Board Participation
Disregarding insights from board members hinders collaboration and makes it difficult to reach well-rounded decisions. A well-planned agenda can encourage participation by identifying all the stakeholders in each discussion, and by allowing equal time for speaking to avoid one person from dominating a conversation.
Insufficient documentation
It is easy for members to arrive at a board meeting unprepared if there are no clear guidelines for how to prepare. A board agenda should include all relevant documents, including previous minutes of meetings reports, minutes, and proposals and arrange them chronologically to support productive discussion. The documents should be provided to board members ahead of time, and available on their board portal for review https://learnboardroom.com/what-is-the-difference-between-donor-management-software-and-membership-management-software/ prior to the meeting.