10 Free Meeting Agenda Templates for Word, PDF, SessionLab

The process of planning and organizing meetings can bring up challenging questions. What are the best practices for meeting design? What agenda items should you include? How do you ensure your meeting stays on time while also covering everything your team needs to be productive and aligned?

Whether you’re a seasoned manager or new to running meetings, exploring some example meeting agendas and learning from others is a great way to save time and improve your meeting practice. Keep reading to explore 10 effective meeting agenda templates you can start using in your next session.

You’ll find a Word agenda template for each session, alongside a SessionLab meeting agenda templates you can use to take your agenda design to the next level.

Let’s dive in!

What should be included in a meeting agenda template?

Before we dive into specific agenda examples, let’s discuss what elements you should include in a meeting agenda template, regardless of the meeting type. A well-rounded agenda typically contains the following components:

• Meeting Title: Give your agenda a clear, concise title that will make it easy to understand what it is when consulting your calendar or when searching for your agenda later.
• Meeting Goal: All good meeting agendas have clear meeting goals, objectives or a meeting topic in mind. The goal can be simple or complex. For example, your meeting goal may be to provide status updates, improve team dynamics or solve a challenge. Use the goal while designing your agenda to ensure your meeting is fit for purpose. While running your session, refer to the goal to ensure everyone is aligned and that the group stays focused.
• Date, Time, and Location: Specify the date and time of the meeting, as well as the meeting location (physical or virtual) so that its easy for participants to attend. Also include how much long the meeting is expected to run for so that everyone can organize their calendars and plan their working day.
• Attendee List: List the names and roles of participants who are expected to attend. This helps in identifying who is responsible for what during the meeting and ensuring all important stakeholders are present.
• Agenda Overview: Provide a simple, high-level overview of the meeting’s flow. This helps participants understand what to expect and prepares them for the meeting’s structure.
• Discussion Topics: Break down the meeting into specific discussion topics, talking points or agenda items. These items should each have a clear title and a little supporting information if necessary. It can also be helpful to put all agenda items in order according to priority so that if you run out of time, you’ve done the most important items first.
• Time Allocation: Assign time slots for each agenda item. Time-boxing in this way ensures that the meeting stays on schedule and that each topic receives adequate attention.
• Presenter or Facilitator: Assign responsibility for each agenda item to a specific individual. This person will lead the discussion on that particular topic or facilitate the activity.
• Materials and Preparation: Mention any documents or materials that participants should review before the meeting. This ensures that everyone is well-prepared. Where possible, attach meeting materials or links to your agenda so they’re easy to find!
• Action Items: Allocate time at the end of the agenda for summarizing actions, next steps and assigning responsibilities for follow-up tasks.
• Open Floor or Q&A: If applicable, reserve time for open discussion, questions, or feedback from attendees.
• Check-out or closing: Effectively bringing a meeting to an end is an important part of the process. You’ll use this time to reiterate key points, leave on a positive note or give feedback on the meeting.

Every example meeting agenda below contains everything you need to run the session. You’ll find instructions, a meeting objective, time allocation and other items you need to get started. We’ve also included tips and details that can help ensure your meeting will be success.

Of course, you’ll want to add your own content and customize your agenda to your needs. In SessionLab, it’s easy to drag, drop and reorder blocks to create a perfectly timed agenda in minutes. SessionLab handles the timing calculation automatically so you can stay track without needing to manually calculate your times.

When you’re ready for feedback, invite your collaborators and clients to refine your agenda. On the day of the meeting, create beautiful meeting materials by customizing a printout to your needs.

Need more help with finding tools to support the management of your meetings? Check out our guide on the best meeting management software to explore how dedicated tools can supercharge your meetings.

Meeting agenda examples

In this next section, we’ll share a selection of meeting agenda templates you can use to run your next team meeting. They’re a great source of ready-to-go agendas designed by facilitators. We hope you find these free templates a useful source of inspiration and practical design tips.

Download your chosen team meeting agenda template in Word or use and edit the SessionLab agenda to make it your own. SessionLab also makes it easy to create minute-perfect sessions, invite collaborators and create beautiful printouts of your meeting agenda templates too!

Team Meeting Agenda

Great meetings tend to follow a clear structure. This effective meeting agenda is a proven structure for bringing a team together and pragmatically covering what is in your agenda.

This team meeting agenda template starts with a quick check-in to help your meeting participants get settled in. You then take a moment to share the intention, desired outcome, agenda, rules, roles and responsibilities, and time allocated for the meeting. By clearly outlining these items with IDOARRT, you can very quickly create the conditions for a productive meeting and get everyone on the same page.

When it comes to running your team meeting, use the following guidelines for choosing the order of your agenda items:

• start with announcements and quick updates;
• next, introduce the one or two main points of discussion;
• have a “parking lot” space to set off-topic conversations aside for another time;
• 10/15 minutes before the meeting end time, move to action points. Closing a meeting takes some time!

Agendas for a regular meeting or team gathering will differ depending on the group, setting, project and the time available. Use this team meeting agenda template as a solid skeleton for any such gathering and adjust to your needs!

Download the Team Meeting Agenda – Word

Download the Team Meeting Agenda – PDF

Use the team meeting agenda template in SessionLab

Tips for running the Team Meeting Agenda

• Going for longer than 1 hour 30 minutes? Add a break! You might also add a short break between particularly heavy items if energy dips or you feel like people need a moment to reflect in silence. In the SessionLab agenda template, simple add an extra block or drag and drop existing items to make space.
• When outlining action points, try to briefly reiterate any decisions or dependencies that have been noted earlier in the meeting. Be sure to take meeting notes to support this process. This can help your team prioritize follow-up actions and assign the right person too.
• Attach a simple PDF overview or online version of your agenda to your invitation emails or calendar invites. This will help your team adequately prepare for the session.

Board Meeting Agenda

The classic agenda is a simple, time-tested board meeting format. Designed for boards and committees, this meeting format typically includes sections like “Call to Order,” “Approval of Minutes,” “Old Business,” “New Business,” “Discussion Items,” “Action Items,” and “Announcements.”

This meeting agenda template structure is suitable for formal meetings, such as board meetings and corporate gatherings, though it can easily be adapted to suit other needs.

This board meeting template runs for 2 hours, though depending on the maturity of your board, your meeting time may differ. Most board meetings can run for 3-4 hours, with a break somewhere in the middle.

In SessionLab, you can easily adjust the agenda and the overall timing will automatically calculate. Want to change the items in the agenda? Drag, drop and add new blocks to quickly tailor your agenda to the needs of your board. You’ll even find space to add meeting notes, meeting minutes and even attach reports or a presentation to each agenda item.

Download the Board Meeting Agenda – Word

Download the Board Meeting Agenda – PDF

Check out the agenda template in SessionLab

Tips for running this Board Meeting Agenda

• You can speed up the process of approving changes to the agenda and approving previous minutes by sending these items out to board members ahead of the meeting. Share your SessionLab agenda to allow members to make any suggestions directly and keep all changes in one place.
• Aim for brevity when creating and giving reports. Try quick summaries to help keep the meeting lean and aim to keep presentations to one or two slides where possible. This doesn’t mean omitting key details, but aiming to present key information without the fluff.
• Keeping on track during your meeting agendas often means effectively time-boxing discussions and gently moving the group through your agenda items. A good meeting agenda template will help keep the session on track, though you can go further by using SessionLab’s time tracker to keep a running timer throughout your meeting.

Daily Standup Meeting Agenda

Stand-up meetings are all about brevity and focus. A typical stand-up meeting agenda might include sections for everyone on the team to check-in, share status updates, challenges and what they’ll be working on next.

This team meeting agenda template is based on the daily scrum of an Agile team, though it’s suitable for any team doing a daily check-in! After a brief introduction, teams go through a process of answering three questions:

• What did you do yesterday?
• What will you do today?
• What’s in your way?

By working through these three simple questions in just fifteen minutes, you and your team can quickly get aligned and start the day effectively! In this template, you’ll find a round-robin variation and a step-by-step version ready to tailor to your needs. Running weekly team meetings rather than one-a-day? This agenda template serves as a great foundation for a weekly alignment too.

Download the Daily Standup Meeting Agenda – Word

Download the Daily Standup Meeting Agenda – PDF

Check out the team meeting agenda template in SessionLab

Tips for running a Daily Standup Meeting Agenda

• Remember the purpose of the meeting. It can be tempting to go off topic, but this meeting is about getting quickly aligned, covering major talking points and moving forward. Be focused, but add interesting items to the parking lot to look at asynchronously or in a follow-up meeting of their own!
• Take meeting minutes or notes and share them with your team. These meeting notes can be especially useful when it comes to the next meeting or for people who couldn’t attend. You can speed this process up too by creating a meeting minutes template alongside your agenda.
• Recurring meetings should be systemized. Create and adjust a meeting agenda template of your own to save time running your next sessions and to ritualize your meetings.

Brainstorming Meeting Agenda

Brainstorming sessions are a great setting for unleashing a group’s collective intelligence and getting creative juices flowing. While this format encourages creativity and innovation, it doesn’t mean you don’t need structure. A good brainstorming session creates space for the unexpected though also helps your team stay focused, goal oriented and on-time.

In this team meeting agenda template created by Sabrina Goerlich, you and your team will spend just over an hour on a process based on Google’s design sprint, a proven structure for creating innovation and solving tough problems.

You’ll start by setting the stage with expert insights and a problem statement to help orient your team. Next, you’ll use a round of lightning demos to find inspiration before each team member individually brainstorms ideas and shares with group before a second round of ideation. After a round of voting for the best ideas, this brainstorming team meeting will be brought to a close by setting actions and assigning responsibilities.

The One Hour Brain Sprint is an effective meeting agenda template for any organization that wants to surface new ideas and solve tough problems. It’s especially effective if your problem does not have a clear solution, and you want to encourage creative input from everyone in your team.

Download the One Hour Brain Sprint Agenda – Word

Download the One Hour Brain Sprint Agenda – PDF

Check out the meeting agenda template in SessionLab

Tips for running a Brainstorming Meeting Agenda:

• Be sure to review action items and assign steps for the next session before the end of the meeting. It’s easy to miss this step and lose momentum so make sure your entire team knows what to do next before you close.
• Document everything. Being able to review what was discussed and all related ideas can help unblock teams later in the process.
• Have a clear decision maker in the room to break ties or make final decisions on what to move ahead with. While the voting round often ends with a clear frontrunner, when there isn’t consensus, it pays to have a stakeholder there to unblock your team.
• Come prepared with data or insights to clarify the problem you are trying to solve. Any solution is only as good as your understanding of the problem. Try to prepare some slides or supporting information and bring it to the meeting so your team can make data-informed decisions.

Decision Making Meeting Agenda

This decision making meeting agenda template is all about working together to make a decision and move forward as a team. It might be about a trying to solve a tough problem, working on innovative ideas or simply choosing the best solution from some you’ve already prepared.

This half-day team meeting agenda illustrates a complete flow from ideation to decision. You will find information and details on the following steps:

• presenting a problem to a team
• brainstorming on multiple solutions (divergence)
• selecting one or more proposals to work on using dot-voting (convergence)
• using consent-based decision-making to refine the proposal
• turning the proposal into a decision you make as a team

If you struggle with running team meetings where all attendees can feel involved while also ensuring the decisions made are high quality, this is the team meeting agenda you need.

Download the Decision Making Meeting Agenda – Word

Download the Decision Making Meeting Agenda – PDF

Check out the meeting agenda template in SessionLab

Tips for running the Decision Making Meeting Agenda

• Try to get familiar with consent-based decision making and Sociocracy before running this kind of decision making model. A thorough knowledge of the methodology will help you lead this team meeting agenda template effectively.
• Meeting minutes that effectively detail the process and discussions around the decisions that were made can be a massive boon when it comes to explaining to others or simply improving your process. Assign someone to take meeting minutes or notes at the outset of your session.
• Ensure you clearly document what decisions were made so you can share with people outside of the meeting and track progress on next steps.

Project Kickoff Meeting Agenda

When starting a new project, running a kickoff will help your team get aligned and start on the right foot. If you’re working with an Agile methodology, this meeting agenda template is a proven process that adheres to Agile principles and gives a team everything they need to get started on their next sprint or project.

This template is designed to support teams new to Agile, as well as seasoned Agile organizations. Start with a refresher on Agile principles and agreements before moving into the kickoff proper. You’ll cover the project overview, set roles and responsibilities, set a timeline and define success criteria before closing with action items and a Q&A.

This team meeting agenda is one you’ll likely run with your Agile team again and again. Save time by reusing your session or making a template of your own. Include any variations or team rituals to ensure your team meeting is fit for purpose and successfully enables a smooth kickoff.

Download the Agile Kickoff Meeting Agenda – Word

Download the Agile Kickoff Meeting Agenda – PDF

Check out the template in SessionLab

Tips for running the Project Kickoff Meeting Agenda

• For teams new to Agile, be sure to include the section outlining Agile principles. Got a team who knows how to run sprints and scrum meetings already? Give a brief reminder and jump in to scoping the project.
• While the broad meeting objectives for an Agile kickoff don’t change from sprint to sprint, it’s always worth reiterating what is part of a kickoff session and what is not. Seasoned teams can sometimes wish to jump ahead on exciting projects and without alignment, this can get messy.
• Add the dates for any key meetings or check-in points to your calendar. Choose a time that works for the majority of people on your team for your daily scrum meeting so you can easily update one another on progress made.
• Detailed agendas like this benefit from an easy-to-understand structure and time-boxed sections. Use SessionLab’s Session Planner to set clear timings and stay in control of your agenda.

Training Session Agenda

A clear and organized training sessions helps ensure participants get the most out of the experience. In this training session agenda template, you’ll use find an easy to amend structure for a basic training session. The agenda is based on a learning framework designed by American educational theorist David Kolb which follows four steps:

• Concrete experience, with room for practical, experiential activities;
• Reflective observation, a time to debrief, form opinions on what the exercise revealed, and discuss them with others;
• Abstract conceptualization, when it’s up to the trainer to offer models, theories and frameworks conducive to deeper understanding and, lastly
• Active experimentation, in which participants are guided to begin applying new learnings to real-world situations.

Before you dive into delivering your experiential training materials, you’ll have space for an opening section designed to orient participants. At the end of the session, you’ll also find time to collect learnings (a key step in ensuring training material sticks!) and effectively close your training session.

One common complaint of employee training is that the skills learned in a session rarely get applied after the trainer has left. This training agenda avoids this risk by including real-world examples, case studies, and giving participants time to reflect on what steps they will take, in practice, to apply what was presented at the training. Want to learn more? Explore our guide on how to design an engaging training session.

Download the Training Session Agenda – Word

Download the Training Session Agenda – PDF

Check out the meeting template in SessionLab

Tips for running the Training Session Agenda

• Clarify expectations at the outset. The presence, attention and participation of meeting attendees is a key aspect of a successful training.
• Don’t skip the debriefing. Giving participants time to reflect together and synthesize learnings can be when a topic truly comes to life and sticks.
• Collect feedback. Especially if you plan on running future meetings, ask participants and co-facilitators for feedback and amend your program accordingly. Add notes to your SessionLab agenda during a training session so you don’t lose any insights.

Workshop Planning Agenda

A great workshop doesn’t happen without adequate preparation. In this series of client meetings, we outline a process that allows you go from an idea to a completed workshop. Paired with our guide on how to plan a workshop, it’s a great resource for practically making a workshop or more carefully orchestrated team meeting happen.

This series of meeting agendas is divided into five parts, each lasting an hour. 

The first part, Sharing a vision, is an agenda for the first meeting with your client (and/or their team) to set clear expectations, get on the same page and start shaping the future workshop. You can also download a ready-to-use canvas to help support this important first meeting!

The second part, Defining the agenda is the stage at which you will define your draft agenda using the information gathered in your previous meeting. For more information on agenda design, check out this post on how to design a workshop agenda!

The third part of this meeting agenda template, Refining the agenda, is about sharing your proposed agenda design and collecting feedback.

In the fourth section, you’ll get ready for the day of the workshop by briefing the team, host and speakers. Finally, after the event is over, get together once again for a retrospective meeting focused on learning.

Download the Workshop Planning Agenda – Word

Download the Workshop Planning Agenda – PDF

Check out the template in SessionLab

Tips for running the Workshop Planning Agenda

• Each step of this agenda has a clear set of action points and a checklist for what needs to be achieved by the end of each meeting. Add your own items to the session or the individual agenda items in order to stay on track and ensure you meet your goals.
• When running recurring meetings or workshops, it can be helpful to know when each one is expected to transpire so you have a clear schedule for the entire project. Be sure to put each meeting or project stage into the calendar. SessionLab’s multi-day sessions feature can help you easily visualise an overview of connected series of meetings like this one. Note that this is a great place to keep meeting notes, too!
• Workshop planning doesn’t need to be lonely! The success of your session can often be attributed to how thoroughly you and your stakeholders clarify the goals and collaborate at each stage of the way. Invite collaborators to co-design your agenda or try making what might have been a solo experience into a team meeting. The results will often be much better for it!

Retrospective Meeting Agenda

All projects and initiatives should be reflected upon and learned from. In this team meeting agenda template, you’ll take a group through an efficient project retrospective that will help you collect learnings, improve as a team and set clear next steps.

While this meeting agenda template is designed around the principles an Agile retrospective, it can be used for reflecting on any project or period of time, sprint or not!

Start by checking-in with the group and reiterating key facts and figures for your recently closed project. Next, lead the group through a process of reflecting on what happened at each stage of the project and recording feedback and insights.

After generating insights and identifying the root causes of things that went well and could be improved you’ll collaboratively decide what to do next time. Record takeaways and learnings and then close with a round of feedback and a final debrief.

Tips for running the Retrospective Meeting Agenda

• Retrospectives should be run at the end of each project, quarter or initiative your team completes. Find a format that works for you and create a template so that you and your team can save time and effort running this important session.
• Preparing key metrics and an overview of what was done to present at the beginning of a meeting is a key step. Even a single slide of useful information can help orient your team effectively.
• Short on time? It can often be affective to ask each person to note what they liked, learned and lacked asynchronously in a Mural board or a virtual meeting tool like Team Retro.

Download the Retrospective Meeting Agenda – Word

Download the Retrospective Meeting Agenda – PDF

Check out the template in SessionLab

Online Event Agenda

Whether you’re running a formal meeting with a virtual audience or creating an informal networking session, an agenda helps you stay organized. This simple meeting agenda template is designed for anyone running an online session. It has space for presenters or speakers to share content, as well as blocks for general networking and breakout groups.

This agenda template begins with space to welcome attendees and introduce a guest speaker before moving into networking and a featured presentation. Add breakout rooms to the agenda in SessionLab to easily organize parallel discussions and tailor this session to your group.

Download the Online Event Agenda – Word

Download the Online Event Agenda – PDF

Check out the template in SessionLab

Tips for running this Online Event Agenda

• Add presenter information or a script to your agenda template to take some of the pressure out of hosting. Even a few simple prompts can make it easy to present with confidence.
• Keep all of your links and supporting materials in one place. Add the links to any Miro boards, slideshows or Mentimeter polls to the relevant point in your agenda. Scrambling to find the right link in front of your attendees isn’t fun! (See more best practices for virtual sessions in our guide on how to plan and run a virtual workshop.)
• Invite co-presenters or facilitators to your session so they can stay in sync and have a clear idea of your running order. You might even share an online version of your agenda or meeting template with your audience members so they know what’s coming too.

Conclusion

A well crafted meeting agenda is an essential element of a successful meeting. Paired with effective meeting facilitation, using a team meeting agenda template can help you and your group achieve your goals and finish on time too! Whatever your purpose, we hope the agenda templates above serve as a useful starting point.

Remember that a structured meeting agenda template not only keeps the meeting on track but also sets the tone for a productive and meaningful gathering. Adapt and customize these agenda templates to suit your needs, attach the agenda to your calendar invites and refer to the agenda throughout your session to start hosting more efficient and engaging meetings.

Want to see more? You can explore our complete template collection to find inspiration or a proven process for your next workshop, meeting or training session.

Ready to start designing your own meeting template? Explore how SessionLab can help save you time and effort when designing your next agenda.