Meetings are a normal part of life in the business world. Unfortunately, not all meetings are successful. Are you tired of inefficient meetings? Send these 8 rules to your boss fed up with inefficient meetings? Send These 8 Rules to Your Boss If a meeting is well organized, there's no reason it can't improve productivity, sense of purpose, and morale. Here are some rules to follow for effective meetings. Read More Many times this is due to the lack of organization of meetings.
With the following free meeting templates, you can easily prepare, record, and summarize your meetings for an effective overall result.
One of the most important parts of setting up any meeting is the agenda. This allows the meeting facilitator to provide the participants with objectives, discussion points, and who will attend. Also, an agenda that includes a preparation section can be helpful. This allows you to include documents and other materials that are essential to the discussion.
Preparing your attendees as much as possible for the meeting is part of your job as a coordinator. Plus, it keeps the meeting organized and moves along. The 15 Best Meeting Agenda Templates for Microsoft Word The 15 Best Meeting Agenda Templates for Microsoft Word These meeting agenda templates for Microsoft Word can give your meeting agenda a great start. any type of meeting. Read more.
This Microsoft Word template from TidyForms is an attractive, professional, and well-designed option. Provides a clean, table-based look for easy reading and simple scanning. The template starts with the basic details of the meeting, such as the title, facilitator, date, time, and location.
In the next section, you will describe the purpose of the meeting. This is a key part of the agenda that allows all participants to have a clear idea of the intent of the meeting. One or two sentences is usually enough as long as it is concise.
The third section is where you can list meeting attendees along with their department, email address, and phone number. Of course, the fields are optional, depending on the business in question and your company.
Next, you'll list the meeting agenda items with the topic, owner, and time. This again allows the participants to prepare for their part of the meeting. You can also keep your meeting on track by indicating allotted times for each topic.
Finally, you will complete the preparation section. You must include and attach items such as documents, diagrams, or emails, as examples, and who is responsible for providing each.
Each section of this agenda template serves its own purpose and allows you to bring people and materials together and set expectations for your meeting.
Taking notes during a meeting is the facilitator's next key responsibility, although you should aim to designate a specific note-taker. Either way, taking accurate meeting notes is essential to the success of the meeting objective.
These notes serve as reminders for follow-ups, actions, problems, and conclusions for all participants. So, if you use a meeting minutes template The 12 Best Meeting Minutes Templates for Professionals The 12 Best Meeting Minutes Templates for Professionals Here are the best meeting minutes templates for Microsoft Word, Microsoft OneNote, Evernote and Google Docs. Read More
The TidyForms agenda template above comes with a second page for meeting minutes. The format of this page is the same as the agenda and three of the four sections are exactly the same.
The only differences are that the action items replace the preparation section and there is a follow-up section for the next meeting. If you're interested in a consistent look for both your agenda and minutes, then this is a great way to go.
However, there is another template for Word on the Microsoft Office website that offers a little more organization for your notes. You'll see that this template has the basic meeting information at the top, like most.
But, what it does offer is a section for each topic covered during the meeting and all the details that apply to that particular topic below. This layout is more structured as it can include the topic, allotted time, presenter, what was discussed, conclusions, and resulting action items for each agenda item in one place . Whereas, TidyForms minute templates have a separate section at the bottom for all action items without much detail.
Another useful feature of this template is the section at the end that allows you to add special notes. This can be very useful when additional items come up that may not be related to a specific topic being discussed.
You can also include the names of people who show up unexpectedly at your meeting in the Observers section.
Now that your meeting is over, it's time to provide your attendees with a follow-up. This meeting summary should summarize the meeting notes taken and the expected action items.
Keep in mind that sending a recap The truth about meetings - and it's ugly The truth about meetings - and it's ugly that the meeting is productive, right? Read More The meeting summary can serve as a reference for similar meetings and topics or topics that come up.
This template from Template Lab is a good option. Simply fill in the meeting title, date, attendees, location, and note-taking sections at the top. Then use the table to include your traces.
Under Issues , You can include the related agenda item, for By add the presenter, and under Discussion Transfer of the same details of the meeting notes. Add the Responsible person, Deadline , and you are ready.
You can also use this to continuously track as action items complete. For example, you can add a column to the table and mark an X or date next to the completed actions.
Alternatively, you can strike through an entire row to show your completion. Then save with a new name or date and forward to participants until all items are finished.
If there are no action items derived from your meeting, you can still use this template to provide a summary of the meeting. Fill in the table with the appropriate details and then under Deadline , enter an indicator that it was completed or not applicable.
If you like this template, you can download it from the Template Lab meeting minutes page. Then scroll down to Meeting Notes Template 17 to download this template.
Business Templates Can Help The Best Business Plan Templates The Best Business Plan Templates Every business needs a plan. These templates will make writing your business plan easy. Clever structure, guiding questions, and clever design will give you a head start in your new career. Read More Your mind should be on the purpose and content of the meeting, not on document creation. So for your next meeting, check out these convenient templates for a well-executed result.
If you have any more tips for hosting meetings that you'd like to share, please comment below!
