Every month we host an Ask Me Anything forum where people bring their burning questions about meeting design or facilitation. More often than not, the questions we get can be summed up as, “Why is the meeting so boring? I feel like I’m pulling teeth trying to get people to engage. It just feels like a waste of time.” There are a lot of reasons meetings can feel like that. Here are some of the most common:

• The agenda is too ambitious for the amount of time.

• There is no collaboration and interactivity; it’s really just a report-out.

• The presenters are focused on delivering information, not on engaging the group.

• There is no clear owner or facilitator(s).

• It’s information overload.

It can be overwhelming to tackle all the possible issues at once. If you’re in a position where it feels like everything is bad about one of your critical business meetings, start by tackling the agenda.

Why start with the agenda?

The agenda is the backbone of your meeting. It’s your roadmap. It’s your north star. Why are we waxing poetic about this? Because when crafted thoughtfully, the agenda has the power to take your meeting from zero to hero.

How do you refresh a meeting agenda?

First, clarify the desired outcomes for your meeting. Our favorite way to do this is by figuring out the Know, Feel, Do of the meeting. For a deep-dive into what that is and how to craft it, check out this downloadable guide here. If you prefer, you can also come up with a simple mission statement by completing this sentence: “The purpose of this meeting is to…” Make sure you write a complete sentence and get as specific as possible; avoid bullet points as they allow you to be vague. 

Once you have a crystal clear meeting purpose, identify conversations you need to have to achieve your desired outcomes Each of these conversations should become its own agenda item.

Then, assign each topic a relative weight with respect to  how much of the meeting you think it should take up. Consider the following:

• Which are the most critical items,

• Which order makes the most sense to gain buy-in over the course of the meeting, 

• Which items can be scheduled last, and potentially dropped if time runs out. And then question whether you need those topics at all.

Use your relative weights to determine how much time you need to allocate to the meeting and each item. It’s important to be realistic here. It’s better to overestimate the amount of time you think you need, because the potential consequence is you’ll let everyone go early (something everyone loves). If you underestimate the time needed, the consequence is you won’t get through it all, and you’ll have to schedule a followup meeting (something people find frustrating)..

If you want to see what we’re talking about in more specifics, we’ve marked up two client agendas with the kind of feedback we typically give. Download them and compare them with your own agenda.

What is the worst meeting on your calendar? How would you change the agenda to give it a long-needed reset?