A team meeting agenda that's worth the half hour.
A weekly team meeting is the one time everyone is in the same room, so it should do what written updates can't: decide things, unblock people and keep the team feeling like a team. Here's a 30-minute agenda template you can copy, what to put in it, what to take out, and how to run it when the team is remote.
By Jitto Joseph5 min read
What a team meeting is for
Status updates are the most common item on a team meeting agenda and the least useful one. Everyone reading out what they did is slow, and most of it could have been a message.
Keep the meeting for what needs people together: decisions that affect several people, problems someone is stuck on, priorities for the week, and a few minutes that are just about the team. Everything else can be written down before or after.
A weekly team meeting agenda template
Copy this into your calendar invite or your team's notes. The times are for a team of 5 to 10; a larger team needs more time for decisions, not more updates.
| Part | Time | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Check-in | 3 min | One question everyone answers in a sentence |
| Wins | 3 min | Something shipped, solved or learned since last week |
| Numbers | 4 min | The two or three figures the team watches, and whether they moved |
| Priorities | 6 min | What matters most this week, and who owns it |
| Blockers and decisions | 10 min | Items people added beforehand, in order |
| Wrap-up | 4 min | Decisions, owners and deadlines, read back |
Agenda items worth having
- A shared list before the meeting. Anyone can add an item during the week, with their name and what they need: a decision, advice, or just to share. The meeting works through the list in order.
- Decisions, written as questions. "Do we move the launch to Thursday?" gets decided. "Launch" gets discussed for ten minutes and ends with no answer.
- One number per area. Sign-ups, open bugs, hours to first reply: whatever the team actually steers by. Say whether it moved; save the story behind it for when it matters.
- Who's away. Holidays, half-days and launches coming up, so nobody waits on someone who isn't there.
- Thanks. A minute for naming who helped whom. It costs nothing and it's often the part people remember.
What to take out
- Round-the-table updates. Ask for them in writing the day before. The meeting can then spend its time on the two updates that raised a question.
- Long debates. If an item takes more than ten minutes, it needs its own smaller meeting with the people it affects.
- Announcements. Post them in the team chat, where people can read them later and react.
- Things only two people care about. Let them talk after the meeting, or straight away if they're sitting near each other.
Ideas to keep it fresh
- Rotate who runs it. A different person each week keeps the time and the list. It spreads the habit of running a good meeting.
- A five-minute demo. Once a month, someone shows what they built or found, live, with no slides.
- A better check-in question. "How was your weekend?" gets the same answers every week. Use a question that tells the team something new.
- A game now and then. A five-minute game at the start, once a month, is enough to change the mood without taking over the meeting.
- Skip a week. If the list is empty, cancel it. Nobody minds getting half an hour back, and the next one gets more attention.
Running it with a remote team
On a call, the meeting starts with a link someone has to find and ends with everyone vanishing. In a virtual office, the team walks into the same meeting room at the same time, and the people who need to keep talking afterwards can stay at their desks next to each other.
Keep cameras optional, share the agenda on screen so everyone is looking at the same item, and put the notes in the team chat before the room empties. If the team spans time zones, rotate the time so the same people aren't always on at night.
After the meeting
- 1.
Post the notes
Decisions, owners and deadlines, in the team chat, within the hour.
- 2.
Move the open items
Anything not reached goes to the top of next week's list, or to its own meeting.
- 3.
Tell the people who missed it
One line each on what affects them, so nobody learns about a decision by accident.
- 4.
Check the time
If the meeting ran over two weeks in a row, cut an item from the template rather than adding time.
Agendas for other team meetings
- Kickoff meeting. Why the project exists (5 minutes), what done looks like (10), who owns what (10), the first milestones and dates (10), risks and open questions (10), and how the team will keep in touch (5). An hour in all, once per project.
- All-hands meeting. Wins and thanks (10 minutes), the numbers that matter (10), what changed and why (15), one team showing its work (10), and questions from anyone (15). An hour, monthly or quarterly, with questions collected beforehand so quieter people get theirs in.
- Daily standup. Ten to fifteen minutes: what each person is on today and anything blocking them. Our daily standup template has the questions and a written version for teams across time zones.
- Retrospective. What went well, what didn't and what to change, every two to four weeks. See retrospective ideas for formats that keep it fresh.
- One-on-one. Thirty minutes between a manager and one person, led by their list rather than the manager's. Use our one-on-one template and questions.