Meeting Planner | Organizer | Worksheet

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UPDATE: The MPOW has a new version!  Download version 1.6 here.

The student leaders that I work with often struggle to make the most of meeting times.  They schedule meetings, attend meetings, and often participate in meetings.  But when it comes to leading a meeting, they wonder how to be more effective.

I've created a one-page tool called the MPOW (meeting planner | organizer | worksheet).  It provides our student leaders with a format to make the most of the meetings that they are in charge of. 

The MPOW assists a leader in
  ...planning (thinking about what needs to happen before the meeting),
  ...organizing (thinking about what needs to happen during the meeting),
  ...and work that needs to be done (thinking about what needs to happen after the meeting).

The six sections of the MPOW are:

1. Meeting Purpose - This helps the student leader identify the answer to the question: "Why do we need to have this meeting?"  If one can't define the purpose, one shouldn't be calling a meeting.
2. Meeting Preparation - There are certain things that must be in place as one gets ready for a meeting.  This section helps the student leader to make sure that he or she is ready to go once the meeting is called to order.
3. Meeting Agenda - The agenda is important because it keeps the group focused on the important topics.  This section includes an area for the leader to check off if the item was discussed, a decision was made, or the item was delayed for another time.
4. Meeting Action Items - This is the most important part of the meeting.  The items that are discussed will usually result in some type of work that needs to be done.  In this section, the student leader will record action items, the people that the work is assigned to, and a deadline that the work needs to be accomplished.
5. Meeting Follow-up - After a meeting, the student leader should be aware of the next steps.  This section will guide the student leader in the need to follow-up certain activities or with certain people.
6. Meeting Notes - This is a generic space for the student leader to record thoughts, ideas, and reminders from the meeting time.

The MPOW is an 8.5"x11" form that is available as a pdf download.  If you find this form useful, please let me know.  Also, it is a work in progress, so any feedback is always welcome.

Download MPOW 1.5 here.

Comments

[Chris Fickett]

I would love to see this concept made into an iPhone application that I could use during my meetings.

[Chris Fickett]

I would love to see this concept made into an iPhone application that I could use during my meetings.

[Chris Fickett]

I would love to see this concept made into an iPhone application that I could use during my meetings.

[Meeting Planning Services]

Anyway to digitize the process?

Thanks

[Meeting Planning Services]

What a great looking tool. Thank you for sharing.

Tim
Meeting Planning

[Rosie]

These comments have been invaluable to me as is this whole site. I thank you for your comment.

[Jo-Anne Jackson, Teacher]

I'm a teacher leader and LOVE your meeting form. I'm forwarding it to friends NOW!

Jo-Anne Jackson
Teacher, GA

[jmac]

Any chance of getting this form in a fillable acrobat format? Nice to keep all the info electronically in the project folder.

[tim]

Thanks everyone for the great comments. I am going to continue to work on this thing.

Tim & Tyler...I will see what I can do as far as a Word template. It's not as easy to manipulate, but I'll give it a shot.

Zeno...great thoughts on the meeting agenda and timing for issues. I may play with the agenda line a bit more.

Carrie...nice idea with the key decisions/agreements...perhaps I can modify the notes section.

Stay tuned for more updates.

tim

[Tyler]

Any chance you could distribute a MS Word template for this? It would be even better if you could fill it out and send it to all participants, encouraging them to print it and bring it along.

[Tim Bulkeley]

Looks realy good, but I don't write - that is I type on a computer whenever possible - even in meetings - so, please could you do a WordProcessor version in Open Office, RTF, MS Word or something so I can fill in the boxes READABLY.

That woukld make a good idea workable for people like me with v. bad handwriting!

[zeno]

great tool and will put your students on the right road;

but please add: "time allocated per item" to your meeting agenda;
a short announcement: 1 minute;
important agenda item: 10 minutes;
item plus discussion: 20 minutes;

and most important of all, stick to your timing; otherwise you will never finish in time;

identify, if possible before the meeting starts, the long winded talkers and make a deal that when they are talking and you look at your watch, they have 30 seconds to finish; if not you will cut them off;

also invite the non-talkers, the quite types, to give their opinion: "john, what do you think about this";

be firm when leading a meeting and stick to your agenda; you can always call a second meeting;

[Dave]

This is great, everyone should be forced to fill these out before meetings!

[Carrie]

Printed it out - I wonder if you could add "key decisions / agreements" space (will put in notes section for now)

[shari]

Nice. If every person who called a meeting had to fill one of these out, there would be a lot fewer meetings.

[Philip Jones]

An excellent tool, to which I would make one addition, possibly on the flip side: a place to record who attends the meeting (and maybe who was invited but didn't attend).

[tim]

Sean...

Thanks for the visit...and the suggestion! It's a good one. I'm thinking that I can add an attendance module in with the follow-up section. By combining the two, it might be easier to remember whom you need to follow-up with.

Check back for the update (or sign up to receive the email update).

tim

[Sean]

I'm glad I found this. Meetings is one of my struggles. Being a young project manager, I find it hard to conduct effective meetings. But this looks like it can really help. So thanks for the share, and creating it.

This is just a suggetsion....

It'd be neat to create some sort of attendance log. I think it's important to know who exactly was @ the meeting.

Just my two cents.

[tim]

Thom. Thanks for visiting studentl.inc! I'm glad you found the MPOW useful and that it hits the mark in a couple of areas that you are zoned in on. I completely agree about the purpose statement for a meeting. Many of our student leaders schedule meetings because they think that they have to schedule meetings. I want to help them get past that and schedule a meeting when they truly NEED to schedule one and then, to be very clear about WHY they are scheduling one.

I'm on my way over to the Qlog right now!

Phil. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall at your dinner in DC. Thanks for sharing this resource with your readers. I'm grateful for the support!

tim

[Thom Quinn]

WOW. I am currently writing a short essay on how to create effective agendas for efficient meetings; therefore, I was delighted to see this excellent worksheet contains an area for the purpose statement. Surprisingly, this is something many corporate agendas are missing, often resulting in poor, off-topic, or useless meetings. When I managed a small IT Department, I tried to run meetings with a specific sandwich technique where the meeting discussions (the meat) were always between a purpose statement at the very beginning and extremely clear actions items were defined at the end.

This template should be very helpful to new leaders! I will be recommending MPOW on my own blog as I am focusing on 101 Days of Productivity.

Thom

[Phil Gerbyshak]

This is a GREAT tool! Thanks so much for creating, and sharing it! Well done! I'm sure it is incredibly helpful, and I'll be sharing it with my readers too. Thanks!