14 free editable meeting agenda templates and examples to help you prepare the perfect agenda and ensure your meeting is effective and productive.

While not every meeting has an agenda, the most effective ones do. It doesn’t have to be wordy, but the meeting should have a purpose with a desired outcome in order to be effective.

In the modern world, it is no secret that many people dread meetings. This is because they dread gatherings that don’t feel structured, drag on for too long, and don’t respect their time. By setting meeting goals and creating a meeting agenda, you are able to run meetings that feel worthy of the time of those in attendance. See also meeting minutes template.

What Is a Meeting Agenda?

A meeting agenda is a document created before the meeting that lists the agenda items and how much time will be devoted to each item. It is created by the person who is running the meeting.

A meeting agenda is effective when it clearly states the meeting’s goals and discussion topics. This keeps everyone in attendance on the same page and gives the person running the meeting an idea of how to run things.

The agenda should list the agenda items or discussion topics in order. These can be listed as bullet points. In fact, brevity is often better when it comes to an agenda since the important factor here is clarity.

It is hard to keep the meeting on topic if anything is vaguely written.

How to Write an Agenda for a Meeting

You can create as detailed or minimal an agenda as you wish. However, here’s a good way to create a basic meeting agenda.

1. Include a list of everyone who was invited including stakeholders, board members, employees, or any other participants. The Secretary can check off who actually attended. You will need the list of attendees for the meeting minutes.
2. Write down the objective of the meeting. This may take you a few tries. It should just be a sentence or two and can be written in bullet points.
3. Write down an outline of your agenda topics. This may be easiest to do in question form. These are generally items needing discussion and results. If it isn’t immediately clear, write down the goal of this question that you want the group meeting to come away with. For example, is this topic for sharing information or coming to a final decision as a group? Is the topic to give everyone a chance for input on a decision someone else is making?
4. If possible, add a time estimate for each agenda item or discussion topic that you can use as a guide during the meeting to keep things timely.
5. Do your attendees need to do anything in order to prepare for this meeting? If so, include links or resources for any materials they need to consult before the meeting. Or, ask them to be prepared to discuss any specific topic if that is relevant. If you have expectations on how you would like them to prepare for their presentation, then make those clear in your agenda. Be sure to distribute this agenda with enough time before the meeting for those expectations to be reasonable.

Which Format Should You Use?

Agenda Template Word, PDF, Excel, and Image

Each of the templates above is available in Word, Excel, as an image, and a PDF. The PDF is editable and you can type your details before you print or save.

Agenda Template Google Docs

You can edit any of the Microsoft Word templates above in Google Docs.

1. Download one of the Word documents on this page and save it on your computer.
2. Open your Google Drive and click “New”.
3. Select “File upload”.
4. Select the meeting agenda template Word doc and click “Open”. The meeting agenda sample that you selected will now upload.
5. Double-click the document that you uploaded.
6. Click “Open with”.
7. Select “Google Docs”.