How to Have a Great Board Meeting

A good board meeting provides a space to discuss important business issues as well as make decisions and establish company policies. To make the most of every board meeting, you need be prepared, set expectations regarding the amount of discussion that is feasible, and follow the agenda.

To avoid boring meetings, establish reasonable goals for meetings. Keep track of them regularly to make sure the meeting stays on the right track. By getting bogged down in reports or technicalities that could have been reviewed before you miss the chance to have your board members discuss matters that are not resolved by the management team alone.

Create a consent agenda to cut down on duration of meetings. This allows the board to swiftly approve any reports/documents that don’t need further discussion and will keep the meeting from becoming too long.

Distribute the board package 3 to 4 days prior to the https://yearsboard.com/how-to-make-the-most-of-google-for-nonprofits/ meeting so that attendees can go through them in advance of the meeting. This will help reduce the time spent reading reports during the event and give attendees the chance to ask questions prior to the reports becoming more complex.

Include an “parking area” at the end of the board package so that items not relevant for this meeting could be moved to another meeting. This will not interfere with the most important agenda item. This will also help minimize the possibility that the most important agenda items are pushed into the meeting later and will not be discussed at all.