Board meetings are an integral component of any business that is successful. Your board of directors will be able to take the most appropriate decisions for your company by ensuring proper planning and follow-up. The best way to increase the efficiency of your board is to keep the discussions focused and stick to the agenda. This helps ensure that your meeting runs smoothly and that all important issues are discussed thoroughly.
Organize and distribute a comprehensive agenda for board meetings prior to the date of the meeting. This will allow the board members to review the agenda prior the meeting and be ready to share their ideas. This also ensures that the board members are on the same page in so in terms of what needs to be covered and when.
Start at the right time. This can help everyone feel energized and engaged and can help to encourage punctual attendees. It is tempting to spend a lot of time reading reports from committees. However, this can be a waste of time because the chairpersons of the committee have already reviewed the reports prior to the meeting.
Set time limits for each topic and keep the discussion focused on the items on the agenda. This demonstrates respect for your board members’ time commitments and helps to make sure that all the necessary discussions are made during the meeting. Consent agendas allow for non-controversial topics to be voted on, allowing more time at the board meeting to concentrate on strategic issues.
Keep the minutes as short as you can. Make use of a template based upon the agenda, which includes details like a list of those in attendance, headings for the topics to be discussed and draft resolution language to support the decisions being made. Visual project management software can help you keep notes at the same rate as the board discussions, and organize them later to make it easy to distribute them.
