09 May How to Create a Visual Agenda for a Better Meeting

A recent Harvard Business Review article titled “How to Design an Agenda for an Effective Meeting” laid out a great agenda design and it reminded me of a complementary tool: use a pie chart.

To quickly sum up the HBR article (please go read it as it is fantastic):

• Seek input from team members.
• Select topics that affect the entire team.
• List agenda topics as questions the team needs to answer. (Read my blog post on this here.)
• Note whether the purpose of the topic is to
  • Share information;
  • Seek input for a decision; or,
  • Make a decision.
• Estimate a realistic amount of time for each topic.
• Propose a process for addressing each agenda item.
• Specify how members should prepare for the meeting.
• Identify who is responsible for leading each topic.
• Make the first topic “review and modify agenda as needed.”
• End the meeting with a plus/delta.

Let’s focus on the time set for each topic.

Each wedge on the pie chart represents the amount of time or percentage of time to be spent on each topic. The power of this visual is that it tells you right away if you will be spending the right amount of time on the right topics.

For example, if the purpose for the meeting is a budget review yet when charted, the agenda has 50% of the time dedicated to contract reviews, something is off. Either the meeting purpose is incorrect, or the time allotments are off. You will know if the timing is right instantly because you will see it instantly.

In the article, the author, Roger Schwarz, gave a sample agenda. I’ve taken that agenda, typed it into Excel with the time allotments in a separate column, and created two different charts: one shows the actual time (in minutes) per agenda topic, and one showing the percentage of time per agenda topic.

Personally, I like the percentages representation. You can ask, “We’ve planned to spend 56% of our time together talking about how to best manage fluctuating demand. Is this appropriate? Do we have this right?”

Want to take it to the next level? Ask someone to track the actual time spent per topic during your meeting and then chart that. How close were you to the agenda? Data like this will clearly point out where changes may be required.

We all hate crappy meetings. We’ve suffered through them and may even have planned them (not intentionally, of course). Bring clarity and intention to your next meeting. Please, please use Mr. Schwarz’s tips and take my pie chart suggestion, then let me know how you made out.