7 Agenda Templates to Use For Your Next Weekly Team Meeting (Free Downloads)

A few tips and templates for better weekly meetings. Download and use these agenda templates in Word or Google Docs, or use in Fellow for free.

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Meetingnotes
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Last update:
March 12, 2024
Meetings

Have you ever sat through a meeting and struggled to keep track of the conversation? Have you attended meetings with many people who don't contribute to the group discussion, or the opposite — monopolizing attention or talking in circles?

A weekly meeting agenda can help mitigate such problems because it provides a structure for participants.

In this article, we'll explain the purpose of an agenda, describe how to create one, and offer some suggestions for a successful meeting agenda.

  1. Why Create A Team Meeting Agenda
  2. How To Make a Weekly Meeting Agenda
  3. Tips For Better Weekly Meeting Agendas
  4. Managing Team Meetings With 20+ People
  5. More Weekly Team Meeting Templates

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Why Create A Team Meeting Agenda

The purpose of an agenda is to facilitate communication in a meeting. Without clear communication guidelines, many discussions are ruined by participants who get distracted by their own agendas or simply ignore the agenda altogether.

An effective meeting agenda keeps participants focused on the main topic while providing valuable background information on the subject being discussed.

{{start-having-better-meetings="/blog-inserts"}}

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How To Make A Weekly Meeting Agenda Template

How to create a meeting agenda varies according to the style of the group.

Some groups prefer a formal structure, with each participant asking a question or making a statement and expecting others to respond. Other groups, however, prefer an informal dialogue format for their meetings.

Regardless of how the meeting is structured, it's important that everyone understand what is being discussed and why.

Here are two common examples of weekly meeting agendas:

Team Meeting

{{weekly-team-meeting="/blog-inserts-7"}}

Manager Meeting

{{weekly-manager-meeting="/blog-inserts-7"}}

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Tips For Better Weekly Team Meeting Agendas

An agenda sets the stage for a well-planned meeting. It provides for a discussion that is both productive and informative, which will help achieve meeting goals.

The following are helpful tips for creating a successful agenda:

Involve others.

Any successful meeting should put participants in charge of the agenda and allow them to contribute a section or two anywhere in the schedule. If you use a collaborative meeting agenda software like Fellow, it's easy for each participants to add the points that they want to the agenda because it's a collaborative document that all attendees have access to.

This helps everyone feel as if they have some input into the meeting because it's not just one person controlling the agenda.

Keep the meeting to one hour or less.

Technically, this is not part of the agenda, per see, but having too much time can encourage group members to linger and go off on tangents that lead nowhere.

It's better to shorten, rather than lengthen, a meeting.

Lengthening meetings can put people at risk of being bored or distracted by side issues. Shortening the meeting, on the other hand, creates urgency and allows participants to feel more involved.

Group parts of the agenda into categories.

Try grouping similar talking points under unique sections and headings within your agenda. This helps people focus on similar topics and stay in one frame of mind before switching contexts.

Distribute the team meeting agenda before the meeting.

This gives people time to think about what they want to say and review any information they may need for their contribution. The agenda will help them be ready when it's time for them to speak up.

Allow everyone a chance to contribute to the discussion, regardless of their experience or background.

This is especially important for novice speakers. By sharing the agenda, you're inviting them into the conversation.

And by allowing everyone to participate, the meeting can be enriched by all participants' backgrounds and experiences, even if their contributions are not as eloquent or effective as others'.

Save time by having people contribute bullet points to the discussion in advance.

This way, you can prepare your thoughts roughly on what people might have to say instead of waiting for them to say it.

This saves time and allows you to speak more productively because you know what you want to say before the meeting.

Make a list of questions that need to be answered.

Putting people on the spot during a meeting is generally not a good idea, but people will feel better about answering questions if they see them listed in the agenda and will have an opportunity to think about them in advance.

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Managing Team Meetings With 20+ People

Hear from Bear Douglas, Director of Developer Relations at Slack, on the evolution a team meeting that not only spans two-dozen people, but also the globe, and how they keep the meeting useful:

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More Weekly Team Meeting Agenda Templates

Depending on whether your weekly meeting is a team meeting, a one-on-one, or a leadership sync-up, your agenda may vary. A meeting template is a great way to gain inspiration about how to structure your meeting.

Sprint Meeting

{{weekly-sprint-meeting="/blog-inserts-7"}}

Weekly 1-on-1 Meeting With Your Manager

{{one-on-one-manager-weekly="/blog-inserts-4"}}

Project Check-in Meeting

{{project-check-in-meeting="/blog-inserts-5"}}

Executive Weekly Team Meeting

{{executive-weekly-team-meeting="/blog-inserts"}}

Weekly Meeting

{{weekly-meeting="/blog-inserts-7"}}

Use one of the weekly meeting templates here in this post, or combine agenda items from multiple templates to create your own.

Don't let unproductive meetings slow you down

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