Question: What is a Meeting without an Agenda?

Answer: A waste of time.

Okay, that may be a bit of an overstatement, but lawyers who are pressed for time loathe unproductive meetings. In my view, the primary work for a meeting leader happens in advance of the meeting. The chair owes it to the participants to provide information in advance about the purpose of the meeting, specify material agenda items, and sufficient information so that they can come to the meeting prepared for the discussion.

There are many good resources for planning successful meetings, and in some circumstances (e.g., a retreat or strategic planning session) a professional facilitator can be essential. Offsite meetings and retreats are beyond the scope of this post.

But for the garden variety practice group meeting or committee meeting, the chair's task is pretty straightforward, though often completely miffed. To avoid annoying the participants:

• Circulate a draft agenda and ask for additions or comments. Unless it is purely an informational meeting where participants are expected only to listen, an effective leader will solicit input from the participants in advance to find out additional topics for discussion.
• Be prepared to manage the conversation so that participants stay on topic, and to promote discussion and engagement by all participants. Meetings are a wonderful opportunity for ensuring that your team members feel valued, listened to and included. The meeting chair can foster those feelings, or kill them.
• Provide or ensure that background facts or materials are available in advance for study or preparation.
• Stage the topics so that easy information items are discussed at the beginning of the meeting while people gather, followed by the most difficult topics or those that require creativity, and wrap up the meeting with a discussion of next steps and assignments.
• If you anticipate that not all key participants can attend for the entire meeting time, be sure to indicate the anticipated time for certain sensitive or important topics, so that people can attend for the parts of the meeting for which their input is important (either to them or to the other attendees).
• Have someone take minutes and make them available to all participants shortly after the meeting.

There is one other type of meeting without an agenda that isn't really a waste of time and that I very much enjoy: that is a party! But be clear when planning and facilitating a meeting that you know the difference. If it is a business meeting, respect the participants by providing an agenda and ensuring that the time is productive and positive. If it is intended to be a social event, then have a party. But don't waste my time with a meeting that is unclear on the concept, and can't decide whether to take care of business or have a social hour. And for heaven's sake be sure that everyone in attendance considers the time useful, and not a waste.

Until we meet again,

Cynthia