business planning meeting themes

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Where do you start when trying to come up with concepts for your next corporate meeting or event…well, how is this?

Our corporate meeting planners have compiled a list of 127 corporate event themes and concepts. AMI CEO, Andy McNeill says,

“Coming up with a concept behind your meeting or event helps drive your planning in the right direction, keeps your messaging on track, and ultimately ensures that you accomplish your goals.”

• A World of Opportunities
• A Whole New World
• A Celebration of Success
• A Spectrum of Opportunities
• Ain’t No Stopping Us Now
• All Systems Go
• Anything is Possible.
• Back to the Future
• Back on Top
• Becoming Agents of Change
• Be Extraordinary
• Beat (Name of Biggest Competitor)
• Better and Consistent
• Beyond All Limits
• Board Break Experience at the event!
• Breakthrough to Excellence
• Breaking Barriers
• Breaking Down Barriers
• Breaking Out of Your Shell
• Breakthrough Performance
• Building on the Best
• Building for the Future
• California Dreaming (Location)
• Commitment to Excellence
• Creating Customer Connections
• Creating Connections—Building Bridges…Together
• Challenge Yourself
• Charting the Course
• Customer Focus
• Discovering Natural Treasures
• Dedicated to Your Success.
• Develop the Possibilities.
• Discover the Difference.
• Do Great Things
• Don’t Stop Believing
• Evolving with Our Business
• Everything Counts
• Expect the Best.
• Exceeding the Vision
• Expanding the Possibilities
• Explore the Possibilities.
• Facing the Future—Together
• Facing Forward
• Facing the Challenges
• Focus on Success!
• Focus on the Future!
• Fusing Power and People
• Gaining the Edge
• Get Momentum
• Get Switched On!
• Get the Edge!
• Getting It Done
• Getting You Prepared for 202_ Good to Great
• Got Momentum
• Growing Your Business
• Great Expectations
• Guide Their Journey: Improving Customer Service
• Higher, Faster, Stronger
• Historic Proportions
• Homecoming 202_
• It Starts with Us
• Igniting Team Spirit
• Ingenuity @ Work
• Innovate, Integrate, Motivate
• Innovation Integration
• In It to Win It
• Journey to the Top
• Keep ‘em Rollin!
• Leadership Next: Defying Gravity
• Leadership: Share the Vision
• Leadership: Precision & Performance
• Leadership Challenge
• Leadership Conference: Guiding the Way into the 21st Century.
• Leading the Pack
• Leading the Way
• Leadership: Sharing the Vision
• Legendary Leadership Lessons
• _____________ Live
• Lighting the Future
• Meeting the Challenge
• Making a Difference
• Make it Happen Make it Matter!
• Make Every Connection Matter!
• Millennium: Honoring the Past, Treasuring the Present, Shaping the Future
• Moving to Mastery
• Make the Member Connection—Mission Possible
• New Economy Efficiencies/Old Economy Relationships
• Next Generation Leadership
• Navigating the Future
• Operation Excellence
• People, Process & Performance
• Peak Performance
• Partners in Excellence
• Prism of Possibilities
• People, Purpose & Passion: The Pathway to Success
• Pump Up Your Sales Success
• Partners in Progress
• Performance Driven
• Pride and Performance
• Play to Win!
• Portraits of Success
• Power of the Past—Force of the Future
• Quality Connections Ready, Set, Grow
• Rev Up Your Business Selling Beyond Price
• Sharing Solutions
• Share the Vision!
• Shaping the Future
• Success Oriented
• Shoot for the Stars!
• Strategies for Success
• Success through Synergy
• Service You Can Trust
• Switch It On
• Swing for the Fence!
• Team (Name of Company)
• Together Towards Tomorrow
• The Challenge of Change
• The Power of You
• The _____________ Experience
• The Pride and the Promise
• Takin’ It to the Streets
• The Power of Performances

Need assistance developing a unique theme around your corporate meeting or event? Our network of meeting and event professionals are available to help. Contact us!

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How to hold a strategic planning meeting: A simple, step-by-step guide for facilitators

If you’re running or facilitating a strategic planning meeting, there are many factors to consider.

It’s much more than just bringing everyone together to have an open discussion — and it doesn’t just happen on its own, either.

There are several steps you can take to ensure that your strategic planning meeting runs smoothly, but it all starts with preparation.

Today, we’ll explore a few ideas to help you hold a successful session, starting with the basics.

Try Miro’s Strategic Planning Template

• What is strategic planning?

Strategic planning is the process of analyzing a current situation within your organization and making sure it’s aligned with your specific objectives. If it isn’t, you and your team must develop a plan to “correct the path.”

So, why is strategic planning important?

In short, strategic planning helps you get from where you are today to the future you want. It’s a way of breaking down big, daunting goals into manageable steps that address your current situation and guide your work.

Here’s where strategic planning meetings come into play.

Meetings are the cornerstone of the strategic planning process.

These meetings are typically held by facilitators , but anyone can lead a strategic planning meeting.

We’ll provide you with specific instructions to hold a successful meeting a bit later, but first, let’s answer a crucial question.

What is the purpose of a strategic plan meeting?

Broadly speaking, a facilitator will use meetings to either:

• Gather specific information and feedback from team members, executives, and stakeholders.
• Help team members work together to solve problems, think strategically, and create new ideas to improve the organization.

These meetings aim to provide clarity in decision-making.

This is not a typical meeting where participants spend time reporting out. Strategy planning is all about brainstorming and collaboration .

This way, you can develop solutions to tangible problems in your organization and set the tone and strategic direction for your team.

Who needs to be included?

The best way to ensure that you get all of the most relevant voices in the room is to create an invite list.

Include people from each relevant department, if possible.

This way, you can cover a more complete spectrum of your company’s operations and activities.

You’ll want to include upper management, but don’t stop there.

Bring in members of the sales department, investor relations, human resources, and any other relevant departments or stakeholders.

You might also consider inviting people from outside of the organization who can provide a fresh perspective.

This is particularly useful for organizations that are doing business in a new market or have started offering new products.

• Best practices for running a successful strategic planning session

Now that you understand the importance of effective strategic planning meetings, the question becomes, how do you actually hold one?

Let’s cover a few of the best practices:

Build buy-in before the meeting starts

First, you’ll want to build buy-in with everyone involved.

Keep what you’re doing top-of-mind, whether that’s through casual conversations or company-wide memos.

In addition, make sure to have a clear agenda prepared, so everyone knows what they can expect out of the meeting. Start by defining the goal, then detail how you’ll get there.

Also, get all the materials you need together in advance.

That may look like coordinating with IT to make sure everyone has access to company software, sending out pertinent documents in advance, or mapping out who will be speaking at the meeting.

Make sure to communicate your expectations clearly so that everyone knows what is expected of them and why.

You’ll want to spend time in your planning stages to keep the tone positive, while at the same time being realistic about what’s possible.

Ultimately, your goal should be to align the team around a shared vision and mission so that you can move forward with a shared perspective.

Now, how can you communicate this agenda?

We suggest you use a centralized space where everyone can see your agenda.

For example, you can use Miro’s Agenda template to create and share your agenda with participants.

You can also use the template to keep notes during the meeting and add refinements later.

This way, everyone can see what’s been discussed and the next steps for moving forward.

Remember; this should be a collaborative effort, so consider asking for ideas from everyone about what they’d like to see covered.

Just don’t forget to actually take those ideas into consideration.

Develop a transparent strategic planning process

During the strategic process, you’re inviting employees to have meaningful discussions around the company’s vision statement, strategic goals, and strategic objectives.

It’s important to have a roadmap in place for how you will facilitate the process so that employees know what to expect.

Your meeting should be an open, engaging discussion with transparent dialog. During the meeting, everyone should get a turn to talk.

Make sure you have a clear process that allows everyone to participate and feel heard, no matter what their role is.

In the planning stage of a meeting, it’s important to have as much input as possible.

You can involve everyone by holding a virtual brainstorming session with this brainstorming template . Once you create a board, you can invite people to collaborate in real time.

This template helps you create a more engaging and collaborative session while allowing every person on the team to contribute their thoughts.

Create an agenda and stick to it

We all know what happens when an agenda is not set or adhered to.

Creating an agenda for your meeting helps you and your participants stay on track. This agenda should include topics, questions, milestones, and people.

Milestones are the larger topics that will be broken down into smaller questions, and these questions should flow to the ultimate goal of narrowing down your strategic priorities.

You can create milestones by putting together a list of discussion questions that will help your participants get on topic and help you check in with the group.

Your agenda might include an opening discussion, a brainstorming session on ideas, and a closing review of the next steps.

When developing your agenda:

• Keep it short: The last thing you want is your meeting to drag on for no good reason, so try to limit each agenda item to ten minutes or less. The whole meeting should only take an hour or two, at most.
• Be selective: Don’t include too many topics or ideas that will bog down your meeting.
• Create a contingency plan: You never know what might happen during your meeting, so always have a backup plan in case your agenda falls through.
• Plan for breaks: For longer meetings or workshops, set aside at least half an hour to take a break, such as during lunchtime.

Make it interactive

As much as possible, you’ll want to make this a collaborative effort, so it’s important to get everyone involved.

For example, you might want to break the group down into smaller sub-teams to brainstorm opportunities for new product features.

You could also task each group with creating a list of opportunities for particular departments within your company.

The point is that you’ll want to encourage open and honest dialog about challenges your company is facing and, where possible, break down any barriers that might stand in the way of progress.

Make sure to collaboratively create strategy documents, provide regular updates on progress, and discuss strategic issues in real time.

This way, you can work side-by-side to improve your performance, no matter where in the world your team members happen to be.

• How to run a strategic planning meeting in 7 steps

To get the most out of each session, you should prepare thoroughly — from the agenda to who you’ll involve and how.

Whether you’re holding a remote, hybrid, or in-person meeting, this process will help you out.

1. Define a clear outcome for the meeting

A strategic planning meeting can go totally off-the-rails if it’s held without a defined objective. That’s why the very first step is to define a clear, tangible goal for the meeting.

For example, your objective might be to better align social media with your marketing strategies .

In this case, your meeting might include a discussion on the purpose of social media, its role in the planning process, and how to better align your social media campaign with your organizational goals.

If your goal is to develop a new product , your meeting might look different.

Consider discussing who the target audience would be and how you can get in front of them. You could also discuss how the product should be positioned in the marketplace and what strategies you’ll use to get it there.

You can also set specific strategic planning meeting themes as part of your objectives, such as business growth or innovation.

The point is to be as specific as possible with your goal. That way, it’s easier for everyone to stay on task and make the right decisions.

2. Break the ice

A strategic planning meeting can be a big undertaking, so it’s important to break the ice by engaging participants in some friendly conversation.

You may want to ask participants what they think of the company’s latest direction or engage them in a fun icebreaker activity. You can also ask them what they think of the new business strategy and how they would implement it.

Or you could ask participants to complete an activity that allows them to interact with one another and develop a better understanding of each other’s unique skills.

For instance, you could assign participants to form teams, and then ask them to create a project plan to solve an issue the company might be experiencing.

You can also break the ice by having participants introduce themselves.

If you’re holding a remote or hybrid meeting, you could have participants discuss what they think in a private online chat room, or you could use an instant messaging program for the same purpose.

Make sure they feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas with each other before starting the main agenda.

The bottom line? The more connected the group is prior to the meeting, the more effective the meeting will be.

3. Set clear expectations

Once you know what you want out of the meeting, the next step is to communicate any expectations of participants, such as things they should prepare in advance of the meeting.

Here are some useful guidelines to keep in mind when you’re setting expectations:

• Provide details: The more detail you provide, the clearer it will be as to what’s required.
• Assign roles: Make sure everyone knows their role and responsibilities within the meeting audience.
• Use timelines: Use timelines to remind everyone of what needs to be completed before the meeting and send reminders if necessary.
• Communicate effectively : Encourage participants to talk with their teams about the fact strategy planning is happening. They may want to set up smaller meetings to gather input for the strategy planning workshop or to share the outputs after the meeting to give employees a chance to ask questions.

4. Set ground rules for behavior

Before the meeting starts, make sure everyone knows the rules.

This is especially important when working with external stakeholders.

For example, you might say something like:

“The goal of this meeting is to develop the strategic plan for the next quarter. We want to minimize distractions, so please don’t check your phone during the meeting.”

Another good idea is to let participants know how they’ll be evaluated. For example, if you’re trying to make progress on a project, you might say something like:

“Let’s try and reach a consensus on the first three points. If we can do that, we’ll consider the meeting a success.”

If you’re dealing with a remote or hybrid team, you should take the time to define online behavior standards. For instance, you could say something like:

“If you have a question, please type it in the chat window. Using outside chat programs is not permitted during the meeting.”

This way, you’ll have everyone invested in the outcome.

5. Identify potential challenges

Before the meeting starts, it’s always good to identify potential areas of conflict that might derail the process.

For example, what would happen if someone had to leave halfway through? Will the meeting continue without them, or will you reconvene once they’re back?

You should also consider how to handle difficult participants. Can you remove a difficult participant from the meeting before they hijack all of your time?

What happens if a disagreement comes up and it’s not resolved?

You should prepare for all these things in advance and have a plan ready if they do happen. For example, consider using a countdown timer for specific agenda items or presentations, so that time is allocated fairly.

If you identify potential challenges early on, you can keep an eye out for them as the meeting proceeds.

6. Encourage full participation

Remember that you’re asking people to spend time — and sometimes travel — to participate in your meeting.

It’s essential that everyone feels like they have the opportunity to participate. The best way to do this is by mentioning at the beginning of the meeting that you’d like everyone’s input throughout.

Make sure to keep an eye out for people who aren’t speaking up. If it seems like they may have something to contribute, ask them for their thoughts on the topic.

Also, make sure everyone knows that participation is critical. If you need to take a vote on something, remind people what the vote is about and why it matters.

Finally, make sure you’re speaking in terms that everyone in the room can understand. If there are people who are new to the organization, spend a moment explaining any acronyms you use.

This will allow everyone to feel like they can give their input with ease, leading to a more successful meeting.

7. Use visuals and brainstorming tools to communicate ideas

Having everyone on the same page is critical, even if they can’t be in the same room.

Here’s where visuals and collaboration platforms come in handy.

Using collaborative tools, like our brainstorming templates helps you organize work and removes some of the stress of coming up with ideas on the spot.

It also encourages people to provide input and makes them feel like they have a stake in the outcome.

For instance, you can use Miro’s Reverse Brainstorming template to come up with innovative ideas and display them in real time. You can save the meeting content on the board too, so you can send it to participants after the meeting.

This can be especially useful if you have multiple participants in different locations involved at the same time. They may not be able to physically attend the meeting, but they can still provide valuable input.

Also, we provide you with a fully customizable strategic plan template .

You can adapt this template to fit your exact business needs and standardize your meetings with ease.

• Sample agenda for a strategic planning meeting

You need to make sure your strategic planning meeting agenda is detailed and thorough enough to keep you on task.

Start with an overview of what you’ll be discussing, then move into individual department updates. This is where you highlight progress against targets.

Finally, spend some time outlining your organizational goals moving forward and, of course, always leave time for questions.

To help you better understand what a strategy planning session might look like in the real world, here’s a sample agenda:

• 10am–11am: Welcome and meeting goals
• 11am–12pm: Leadership team updates
• 12pm–1pm: Department updates
• 1pm–2pm: Lunch break
• 2pm–3pm: Analyze challenges and problems
• 3pm–4pm: Ideate solutions
• 4pm–5pm: Discuss and gain consensus on solutions and goals
• 5pm–6pm: Assign tasks and responsibilities for strategy execution
• 6pm–7pm: Q&A
• It all comes down to solid preparation and visuals

The best way to ensure your meeting runs smoothly and effectively is to prepare it with anticipation. By creating a clear agenda, you’re able to get the most out of your session.

Also, the use of visuals and brainstorming tools helps you collaborate with your team and communicate your critical points more effectively.

You can hold your planning meetings in a more visual way by creating a board and sharing with your team.

Also, you can use the strategic planning meeting template to get started with fewer headaches.

Want an action-oriented framework to help your team continuously improve?

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Your Strategy Planning Meeting Agenda (with Template)

Have you been asked to pull together a strategy planning meeting agenda? And you’re wondering what other people do in their strategic planning sessions… I’ve been there!

In this article, I’ll explain what a strategic planning meeting can cover and share a sample agenda you can customize for your strategy sessions.

Strategy planning doesn’t just happen. You can’t put people in a room and expect there to be a 3-year plan at the end of it. The conversations need a structure to help keep the pace and ensure the meeting runs smoothly. And that’s where the agenda comes in, as part of your pre-meeting prep.

What should a strategic planning meeting include?

A strategic planning meeting should include:

• A review of organizational objectives
• An assessment of how you are doing against those objectives
• Decisions around what needs to be sped up, slowed down, started or stopped in order to better align activity with the objectives.

If you think about the point of having a strategy discussion, it’s really to either define the strategy or to decide if you are on track with delivering the strategy . What you need to include in the meeting has to tie back to those points.

In other words, what do you want to get out of your strategic planning process? Is it a new strategic plan? An update to the last one because something drastic has changed? A review with some ‘light editing’ to ensure decisions are being taken that keep you on track to meet your goals?

What goes into your meeting (and therefore, your agenda) will very much depend on where you are in the strategy planning cycle.

When do strategic meetings happen?

There’s no fixed cadence for strategy conversations. Some businesses use quarterly meetings. Some might do a lot of planning during the existing structure of board meetings. As long as sufficient time is put aside for strategic thinking, you can set whatever frequency of meeting you like.

I would recommend quarterly review sessions, with a longer goal-setting session once a year, but do whatever works for you. If you are putting together your first strategy or doing a complete overhaul, you’ll need to spend a lot more time on it to get the strategic process set up and the relevant data collected.

Planning a successful virtual strategy meeting

Strategy meetings tend to be quite long. You might put a full day or even two aside for your planning, perhaps another full day the following week for the follow up.

For that reason, it’s often better to do them in-person instead of remote, but do what works best for you and the team.

Personally I would prefer to meet in person as in my experience you get better engagement with the process.

If you have to hold the workshop remotely, with people dialling in, make sure you schedule enough screen breaks. I put a break in at least after every 90 minutes — people just can’t focus for that long.

You can also use breakout rooms to set people up to work in small groups (in person or remotely using your collaboration software) so they can interact more easily.

Sample strategy planning meeting agenda template

Every effective meeting needs an agenda, and the great thing about strategic sessions is that you can tailor the agenda to cover the topics that would be the most valuable to wherever you are in the planning cycle. The strategic planning agenda below assumes you are meeting in-person, and is suitable for a strategic review session.

9.30am: Welcome

Use this time for introductions. Do an ice breaker exercise if your attendees won’t think it is cheesy (mine would).

I start by sharing the meeting objectives and making it clear this is a strategic meeting so people don’t get carried away with the detail. Discuss ways of working e.g. who is capturing what actions, what you’ll do if there is a stalemate for a decision, what decision-making tools you are using.

You might want to introduce ground rules for the session such as

• No taking calls in the room
• Take space, make space
• Share your experience

etc. I think my delegates would find this a little patronizing as they have all worked together for many years, but I can also see that there would be circumstances in which it is appropriate to refresh expectations.

If you think they would value having some guardrails for acceptable behavior during the conversations, then by all means add time for that into the agenda at this point.

10am: Big picture strategy

Present the overall roadmap, for example, a timeline for the 5 year plan. Make sure everyone is clear on where the organization is going and what big chunks make that up. For example, perhaps you have a couple of different portfolios that support the strategy.

You can use this time to talk about the current situation, the company’s strategy and how your department fits into that. This section should answer the question: where are we now?

10.30am: Coffee break

Give people time for a bathroom break and to get something to drink. Bonus points if you provide the coffee!

10.45am: Progress review

Have each executive or leader in the room share their area’s progress against their area of the strategic plan. They can bring in team members to present specific topics if that would help, and if their expertise is needed as part of the debate.

These presentations don’t necessarily need to be formal, but they should cover what objectives the department is working to, how they link to the big picture strategy and whether they are on track. Talk about whether milestones are on track to be hit. Present the budget figures related to the area and the confidence levels around meeting those.

This section of the agenda might be long, depending on how many leaders you have to get round, so adjust the rest of the agenda to fit your timings. I’d suggest everyone gets 30 minutes but it depends on what you think they have to share and how much discussion there will be about each area. If possible, timebox the updates so you keep the meeting moving.

Alternative session: Where do we want to be?

If you haven’t got strategic progress to report, use this time to:

• Brainstorm where you want to be
• Agree where you are going
• Create a vision for the next 3 years
• Document the vision and mission.

12.45pm: Lunch break

Schedule in some time to eat and return calls. I think people get back to the meeting more quickly if you provide lunch in the room.

1.30pm: Key issues

It’s worth parking the discussion of any major issues that affect multiple areas until after everyone has had a chance to present their updates, because then it’s easier to see the bigger picture and what might be affected.

Use this time to review anything that dropped out of the morning’s conversations. There might be new opportunities, challenges, resource constraints, market changes and more.

This section of your day should answer the question: what might stop us from getting where we want to go? Think about the values, skills, culture and risks that might block your progress.

2.30pm: Revise plans

After you’ve discussed the challenges or opportunities that present themselves, go back to the plans and see how that information affects what you are committing to do for the next period.

Agree changes as required. This part of your agenda answers the question: what do we need to do? If you do need to do anything differently in order to get back on track or head off in the right direction, this is where you should be discussing and agreeing.

3.30pm: Action planning

I like action planning! Strategy meetings should be all about decision-making, so you should ring-fence some time to talk about how to turn those decisions into action items . List out what needs to be done and allocate owners and timescales to each.

One thing that should definitely be on the action list is how you are going to communicate the decisions made today to everyone else in the team. Add them to the decision log . Make sure someone is responsible for creating and circulating meeting minutes .

This is an important part of the strategy meeting and it answers the question: how will we do it?

4.30pm: Any Other Business

Use this time for the ‘one last thing’ that people want to bring up. If you’ve had a parking lot up on the wall, check that all the topics have follow up actions planned so the conversations can continue outside of the room.

5pm: Wrap up and close

Finally, wrap up the meeting, draw it to a close and if you are going to meet again, put the date in the diary. Then go down the pub!

Tailoring the strategy agenda

As you’ve probably realized, there is no one-size-fits-all strategy meeting agenda that will suit every need. If you are starting from scratch and are using the time to write your strategy, you’ll need to put time aside for brainstorming new ideas, a presentation of market research analysis or feedback from customer focus groups.

If you are reviewing the projects that make up the strategy, you might bring each project manager in to present their project, before discussing as a team what initiatives need to be brought into the portfolio to ensure the strategic goals can be met.

The important thing is to always go back to the why: why are you meeting and what do you want to get out of the time? You can’t go wrong if you start there.

5 Considerations for a strategy planning workshop

So you’re ready to draw up that meeting agenda. Here’s what to consider before you get going.

1. Set the objective

I like to write the objective for any meeting at the top of the agenda. It helps focus people’s minds and keeps the conversation on track. Think about what you are meeting for and what the leadership teams are expecting to get out of it. Here are some examples:

• To define the 5-year growth plan for the organization
• To establish the projects we want to focus on to meet our strategic goals for the next 12 months
• To review the new products we intend to bring to market in the next 3 years
• To set the IT agenda for the next 24 months

You can hold strategic planning workshops for departments, teams or for the business overall. You can plan for the long term or adopt a rolling wave planning approach to plan ongoing. So which is it for you?

2. Let people know what is going to happen

Set expectations for the meeting. Let people know what contributions are expected from them. What do they need to prep in advance? Ask them for their agenda items – you might not include them as ‘real’ agenda items but it would help to know what talking points they intend to bring up.

Share any papers, timelines, business cases, strategy documents etc that make useful background reading. The more ready people are to contribute, the more you will get done during the meeting.

3. Prepare for conflict

As the meeting facilitator, you’ll have a good idea of the topics that will come up. And the potential flashpoints. For example, there are always conversations about budget. Doing anything strategic seems to cost a lot, and investing in one area means another area doesn’t get the investment.

Try to spot any sources of potential disputes in advance so you have pre-meeting conversations to manage expectations and ensure everyone comes to the session with an open mind (and the data to support their case). Healthy debates are to be encouraged!

Think about how to resolve conflict as a team if you can’t get to consensus. There are several group decision-making techniques you could try. In my experience, it’s often the most senior person in the room who makes the final call – strategy is not always a team game. It might not feel fair, but there are often political, economic, commercial and environmental reasons for decisions that might not always be clear to everyone in the room.

Whatever you think the outcome might be, have a few phrases to help facilitate the debate if it seems attendees are getting stuck. For example:

“Ultimately, it’s Fiona’s decision. Fiona, what do you want us to do?” “Let’s continue this conversation for another 10 minutes and if we aren’t able to reach a decision at that point, I suggest that Henry and Priya book some time to review and come back to us with a recommendation next week.” “IT are the guardians of that process. Do you agree to that approach?”

4. Prepare to go off script

I’ve been in strat planning meetings where we started with an agenda and then went totally off script… and the output was all the better for it. It’s great to have an agenda, and the template above gives you a starting point, but if it feels like the right thing to do is to delve into a particular area, then do it.

Strategy is too important to shortcut. If it feels like the meeting is taking longer, just say: “This feels like an important topic. Is everyone OK with staying with it for a little longer?” or “That isn’t something we were going to cover today but it sounds like it’s important that we get into it. Does everyone agree?”

Talk about what needs to be talked about. Strategy work takes time. The agenda is there as a guide but sometimes you just need to get it all out on the table.

5. Define success

What would a successful meeting look like? Sometimes it’s going to be OK to just talk and debate until you get to the heart of your strategy. Other times you might want to go all in on a brainstorming session and success will look like 20 new ideas.

It might be that you want to gain agreement on three new projects or prepare an update to go to the next board meeting. Think about what would constitute a successful outcome and try to guide people towards that.

Your next steps

• Agree the goals of your strategy meeting
• Write the agenda
• Socialize some of the ideas
• Adequately prepare for the session so you feel ready to facilitate it

In this article you learned what to include in your strategy planning meeting agenda and what considerations go into planning a successful strategy workshop. Don’t forget to grab a free action log template to record all the good stuff that comes out of your meeting. I hope it goes really well for you!

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Project manager, author, mentor

Elizabeth Harrin is a Fellow of the Association for Project Management in the UK. She holds degrees from the University of York and Roehampton University, and several project management certifications including APM PMQ. She first took her PRINCE2 Practitioner exam in 2004 and has worked extensively in project delivery for over 20 years. Elizabeth is also the founder of the Project Management Rebels community, a mentoring group for professionals. She's written several books for project managers including Managing Multiple Projects .

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How to Facilitate a Successful Strategic Planning Meeting [Best Practices + Templates]

Written by: Raja Mandal

A strategic planning meeting isn't like your typical meeting where you sit around the table and discuss what happened last week.

It’s an event when leaders come together to assess the organization's current state, set long-term goals and create a roadmap to achieve them. As a meeting host, it's your job to make sure these high stake gatherings are productive.

According to Gartner, organizations that effectively unlock the capacity to implement new growth strategies increase their bottom line by 77% .

But where do you begin? How do you ensure that everyone is on the same page and that the meeting lives up to its billing?

This article will walk you through the steps of successfully running a strategic planning meeting and help you get the most out of it.

Let’s start!

Table of Contents

What is a strategic planning meeting, what is the purpose of a strategic planning meeting, benefits of a strategic planning meeting, how to run a strategic planning meeting.

• 10 Templates to Use for a Strategic Planning Meeting
• A strategic planning meeting is an opportunity for you and your team to gather and discuss your business's future and the steps needed to grow.
• A strategic planning meeting aims to assess the current position, set long-term goals, create a success roadmap, and bring diverse perspectives together.
• The seven steps of running a successful strategic planning meeting include defining the purpose, inviting the right people, developing an agenda, conducting a SWOT analysis, setting long-term goals, developing strategy roadmaps and using the right tools.
• Follow the six best practices to run a successful meeting; prepare background materials, set ground rules, encourage active participation, stay focused, manage time, document and share outcomes, and evaluate and reflect.
• Use Visme's easy-to-use tools and templates to create the visuals you need to run the meeting successfully. Sign-up for Visme to get started.

A strategic planning meeting is a gathering of stakeholders in an organization to create a strategic plan that outlines the organization’s goals and objectives and the strategies and tactics required. It's a time to assess the company’s current state, identify areas for improvement, set short and long-term goals and create a roadmap to achieve them.

During a strategic planning meeting, leaders from different departments or areas of an organization come together to share their insights and expertise. This collaboration brings together diverse perspectives and creates a more comprehensive plan.

The meeting may also include external stakeholders, such as customers or partners, to provide additional feedback.

Once the strategic plan is in place, it's essential to communicate it to the entire organization. This ensures that everyone is aligned with the organization's goals and understands their role in achieving them. Regular check-ins and progress reports can also keep the plan on track.

We know that the purpose of strategic planning is to set goals for the future and plan how to achieve them. But what does that mean in practice? How do you create a clear picture of where your company is headed?

Here are the purposes of a strategic planning meeting that you can use to guide your meetings:

Assess the Organization’s Current Position

One of the primary purposes of a strategic planning meeting is to evaluate the organization's current state. This involves reviewing its performance, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This information helps leaders identify improvement areas and create a plan that aligns with the organization's broader mission and vision.

Use the SWOT analysis template below from Visme’s library to capture and visualize the data you found in the meeting.

Set Long-Term Goals

Another crucial purpose of a strategic planning meeting is to establish long-term goals. These goals should be achievable, measurable, and aligned with the organization's mission and vision. They help provide direction and focus for the organization, ensuring all efforts are aligned towards a common purpose.

If you need help setting and reaching your goals, read this comprehensive guide on setting SMART goals . Also, here’s a SMART goal-setting template you can use to make your own.

Create a Roadmap for Success

Once the long-term goals are established, a strategic planning meeting is an opportunity to create a roadmap for success. This involves identifying the strategies and tactics required to achieve the goals, as well as the resources and timelines needed to execute them.

The roadmap should be realistic and actionable, providing a clear path to achieving the organization's objectives.

For example, suppose your strategic planning meeting is about redefining your marketing strategy. In that case, the roadmap should outline how your organization will move from its current approach to a more effective one.

Here's a roadmap template that you can customize to make your own.

Bring Together Diverse Perspectives

A strategic planning meeting provides an opportunity to bring together leaders from different departments and areas of the organization. This collaboration leverages the diverse perspectives and expertise of everyone involved, creating a more comprehensive plan that is better aligned with the organization's mission and vision.

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Let’s discuss the benefits of a strategic planning meeting to assess whether your organization would benefit and make the sessions more effective and productive.

Also, you would understand why many organizations invest time and resources in strategic planning meetings.

1. Increased Clarity and Focus: Leaders can ensure that everyone is aligned and working towards a common purpose by setting long-term goals and creating a roadmap for success. This clarity and focus help to improve decision-making, increase productivity and ultimately drive results.

2. Improved Collaboration and Communication: Leaders from different areas of the organization come together to discuss a plan for the future. This collaboration helps to leverage diverse perspectives and expertise, creating a more comprehensive plan that aligns with the organization's mission and vision. Additionally, the strategic planning meeting allows leaders to communicate the plan to the entire organization, ensuring everyone is on the same page.

3. Better Resource Allocation: You can identify the resources required to achieve the organization's goals. By creating a comprehensive plan, you can better allocate resources, such as budget and personnel, to ensure they are used effectively and efficiently.

4. Increased Adaptability: A strategic planning meeting is not a one-time event. It's essential to check in on progress and make adjustments as needed regularly. This ongoing adaptability helps to ensure that the organization remains aligned with its long-term goals, even as circumstances change.

Now we will explore seven key elements that, when combined, create the perfect recipe for successful meetings.

From defining your meeting's purpose and goals to using visual aids and brainstorming tools, we'll provide practical tips and strategies to elevate your meeting game.

1. Define the Purpose and Goals of the Meeting

This is the obvious first step to running a strategic planning meeting. Nobody wants to host a meeting they don’t know the purpose and goals of. It would be a horrible day at work for any professional at any organization.

Ask yourself why the meeting is being held and what you hope to accomplish by the end of it. This could range from updating team members on project progress to brainstorming new ideas.

Once the purpose is clear, set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals for the meeting. These goals will guide the discussion and help participants focus on the objectives.

For best results, share the purpose and goals with all attendees beforehand so everyone comes to the meeting prepared and engaged.

If you have difficulty achieving goals, maybe you aren’t setting them right. Use Visme’s SMART goal-setting templates to set achievable goals. Here’s an example template.

2. Invite the Right People

A critical aspect of any successful meeting is inviting the right people. This means including stakeholders and decision-makers directly impacting the meeting's goals and purpose. Additionally, consider inviting subject matter experts or team members who can contribute valuable insights and perspectives to the discussion.

To ensure optimal engagement and productivity, avoid inviting too many attendees. This can lead to unproductive discussions and hinder decision-making. Before sending out invitations, consider each person's role in the meeting and how they can contribute to achieving the set goals.

3. Develop an Agenda

An agenda serves as a roadmap for your meeting, providing structure and direction. Start by listing the topics to be covered in order of importance or relevance. Allocate time slots for each topic, keeping in mind the overall duration of the meeting. Include breaks and time for Q&A or open discussion.

Share the agenda with attendees in advance, giving them ample time to prepare their thoughts and contributions. This will help the meeting run smoothly and ensure that all key points are addressed.

While setting up the meeting agenda, it’s easy to forget the small details. This easily understandable concept map template will help you plan the agenda. Customize it using Visme’s concept map maker to fit your needs.

4. Conduct a SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that helps identify an organization's or project's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Incorporating a SWOT analysis into your meeting can help participants better understand the current situation and make more informed decisions.

Begin by having attendees brainstorm and discuss the internal strengths and weaknesses of the project or organization. Next, analyze the external opportunities and threats that may impact success. Encourage open and honest discussion, leading to a more accurate and comprehensive analysis.

Use our online SWOT analysis generator to capture and visualize the findings of your analysis. Find hundreds of SWOT analysis templates in Visme’s library and choose the one that matches your intent.

Here’s an example template to get you started.

5. Set Long-Term Goals

During the meeting, engage attendees in a discussion about the organization's future and the desired outcomes in the long run. Use the insights gained from the SWOT analysis to set realistic and achievable goals that align with the organization's vision and mission.

Ensure that the long-term goals are SMART and consider how they relate to the short-term objectives discussed earlier in the meeting. This will help create a cohesive strategy for success.

One example of setting a SMART long-term goal for an organization is to increase revenue by 25% within the next three years by expanding into new markets while maintaining our current customer base.

The goal is specific, outlining a measurable target for revenue growth through a percentage increase. It is achievable by considering both expansion and retention of customers, relevant to the organization's mission and vision and time-bound with a three-year timeline for achievement.

6. Develop Your Strategy Roadmap

With clear long-term goals in place, it's time to develop a strategic roadmap outlining the steps and milestones necessary to achieve them. This roadmap should include each step's key initiatives, responsibilities, resources and timeframes.

Encourage collaboration and input from all attendees to create a well-rounded and comprehensive roadmap. Once completed, share the strategy roadmap with relevant stakeholders to ensure alignment and commitment.

Read this comprehensive article on 11 roadmap templates and find the perfect one for your meeting.

7. Use Visual Aids and Brainstorming Tools

To enhance engagement and collaboration during your meeting, incorporate visual aids and brainstorming tools. These can include whiteboards, flowcharts, digital collaboration platforms and mind-mapping software.

Visual aids help participants better understand complex concepts while brainstorming tools encourage creative thinking and idea generation. By employing visual aids and brainstorming tools effectively, you can foster a more dynamic and interactive meeting environment that leads to better outcomes and more innovative solutions.

Choose the tools that best fit the needs of your meeting and attendees, and ensure all participants are comfortable using them.

If you are conducting the meeting online, using a whiteboard is the best way to keep everyone on the same page. Use Visme’s free online whiteboard tool to brainstorm your agenda, plan your meeting and successfully run the meeting.

The tool comes with many types of templates, such as mind maps, concept maps, flowcharts, storyboards and more. Furthermore, you get advanced yet easy-to-use features to improve collaboration, such as hand-drawing capabilities, notes, shapes, adjustable canvas and more.

And the best part is that you get access to every Visme feature, from animated graphics and illustrations to charts and graphs on the whiteboard.

11 Templates to Use for a Strategic Planning Meeting

To help you make your meetings more productive and efficient, we'll introduce you to 10 essential templates for your strategic planning meetings.

These templates cover various aspects of the planning process, including meeting agendas, project updates, sales strategies and more.

1. Meeting Agenda Whiteboard Template

Let’s begin with this meeting agenda whiteboard template. It visually represents the agenda, with different sections for each item. The whiteboard layout makes it easy to add, move and remove items as needed.

The “Agenda” section lists topics, presenters, dates and times. Learn about who will give presentations and what you can expect from them. The other sections briefly introduce the experts and information, such as organizations, places and objectives.

The template ensures that all necessary topics are covered during the meeting and that time is used effectively. It also allows for easy collaboration and brainstorming, as all attendees can see the agenda and contribute their ideas.

Visme’s collaborative design features will make your collaboration and brainstorming sessions more effective and streamlined. It will allow you to tag your team members, review, respond to and resolve comments, pin annotations, add sticky notes and more.

With the live editing feature, any collaborator can make changes to a design project and the changes will appear live.

Watch the video below to learn more about Visme’s collaboration features for teams.

2. Meeting Notes Whiteboard Template

With its sleek and modern design, the meeting notes whiteboard template is perfect for capturing and organizing the most important ideas and action items discussed during the meeting.

The complementary color combination and the presentation of the content in sticky notes give the template a neat and clean look. This will make it easy for participants to follow along and understand the most important points discussed during the meeting.

You can customize almost everything in this whiteboard template. Change the fonts, colors and text, add design elements and do whatever you need to create your own meeting notes whiteboard.

3. Project Status Report Template

The project status report template helps project managers keep track of their project status or progress. Make the most of the charts, graphs and tables in the template to display data for your project status report.

Use the line graph to demonstrate marketing expenses, bar graphs to exhibit online sales and the table to showcase your overall marketing performance.

With Visme, you can choose from 20+ types of charts and graphs for data visualization and 30+ data widgets to show your project progress.

For example, you can use a radial gauge to showcase how much progress your team has made and how much work still needs to be done.

If your meeting agenda includes assessing the current marketing strategy, you can use this template to show the project status report. However, you can customize this template and many other report templates from Visme’s library to present during the meeting.

Need help writing your project status report? Read this article on writing a project status report and learn more about it.

4. Team Plans and Status Reports Infographic Template

Whatever you’ve discussed in your meeting should be organized in a centralized document that everyone can access. This infographic template does exactly that. The project timeline section lets you outline the different phases of your project, and the bottom section acts as a checklist for the project status.

Customize the template with Visme infographic maker and replace the design elements such as illustrations, shapes and icons to fit your topic. Visme comes with 10,000+ vector icons , 3D graphics , animated illustrations and more that you can use to decorate your infographic.

5. Radar Chart Template

During the strategic planning meeting, you may need various data visualization tools to represent complex data in an easily understandable manner. This radar chart template is one of them. You can use it to present your company’s regional sales data.

To customize this template’s design, change the text and color scheme and add new design elements such as legible fonts, high-resolution photos and icons.

Visme has a shortcut feature that helps you find everything in Visme with just a press of the keyboard. Just type the “/” key on your keyboard, and a menu will pop up with everything you need.

6. Gantt Chart Infographic Template

Imagine you have been tasked with arranging a team-building retreat for your company. Your goal is to deliver a memorable experience for your colleagues by organizing engaging workshops, team-building exercises, and well-planned activities.

However, without a well-defined and comprehensive plan, you might overlook crucial aspects of the retreat, such as transportation and accommodations, or face difficulties in meeting deadlines.

The same goes for planning a strategic planning meeting. You need a clear and concise action plan to ensure everything runs smoothly and you achieve your objectives. This is where a program planning Gantt chart template comes in handy.

The Gantt chart visually represents a project's timeline, tasks and deadlines. With this template, you can organize all the necessary tasks and milestones in a clear and logical sequence.

So, if you want your strategic planning meeting to succeed, include a Gantt chart template in your toolkit.

7. Product Roadmap Whiteboard Template

Are you holding the strategic planning meeting to launch a new product or service? If yes, then you might be interested in this product roadmap whiteboard template. It comes with a modern design with bold colors and shapes that make it easy to read the content.

And since it’s in whiteboard format, you can bring everyone together to work on it and adjust the roadmap accordingly.

Use Visme's AI image generator to create stunning images, icons, illustrations and other graphics for your product roadmap. This will enhance the visual appeal of your product roadmap, making it more engaging and easier for your team members to comprehend.

8. Organizational Chart Template

In a strategic planning meeting, an organizational chart template is invaluable. It helps participants understand the company's structure and where they fit in. It enables you to identify potential communication gaps, overlaps or bottlenecks hindering the company's growth.

Depending on your company's specific needs, you must add, remove or modify positions and roles within the chart. Visme’s user-friendly interface makes it easy to perform these changes.

You can also customize the design and layout of the chart to fit your company's branding or style. Include your brand colors , brand fonts , company logo and more with Visme’s brand design tool .

Read this article about setting up your branding kit in Visme, or

9. Sales Strategy Presentation Template

This template is a powerful tool that can help you create an impactful sales strategy presentation quickly and easily. It includes all the essential elements of a successful sales presentation, including sales highlights, quarterly metrics, pitfalls and more. With this template, you can save time and effort in creating your presentation while ensuring that all critical elements are included.

It’ll help your participants understand the sales strategy and how it aligns with the company's overall goals and objectives. It enables team members to identify opportunities and challenges and develop action plans to achieve their sales goals.

You can easily customize the template to fit your needs and preferences by adding your company's branding or additional slides. It's also easy to update and modify as the sales strategy evolves.

Check out Visme’s dynamic fields feature . With this feature, you can create a sales strategy presentation that is not only visually stunning but also up-to-date and accurate. For example, you can use Dynamic Fields to automatically update your sales numbers, market data, or budget figures in real time, eliminating the need for manual updates.

10. Go-To-Market Strategy Presentation Template

Navigate the complex landscape of market entry by providing a clear and concise plan of action.

With this go-to-market strategy presentation template, you can identify your target audience, tailor your messaging, and outline the channels and tactics to reach them effectively. It provides a structured approach to launching your product or service, ensuring a successful and profitable entry into the market.

This template serves as a visual aid to guide your team's discussion and decision-making during a strategic planning meeting.

Customize the presentation with Visme’s presentation software . You can share, download or present directly with Visme’s presenter tool.

Visme’s presentation tool is loved by users from across the globe and is considered to be more powerful than other available tools.

Hear it from one of our loving users Jessica L. | Small-Business Owner.

"No need to go back to PowerPoint. Visme makes project presentations easy and fast. Lots of useful templates and excellent graphics. I enjoy the features they continue to add and update often. They make project work easy"

11. General Six-Pager Memo Plan

An Amazon 6-pager is a document that Jeff Bezo introduced to help improve and streamline Amazon's internal communication, guide meetings and help with team decision-making processes.

If you'd like to emulate the same strategic planning that Amazon implements, you can use this Amazon 6-page memo. It's customizable and can be used for a wide range of industries. It has a modern layout, which is fully customizable.

This template includes all the sections needed, such as an introduction, goal, business state, strategic priorities and more. Make this template yours by adding your logo and rebranding it with your company colors and fonts.

Best Practices for a Successful Strategic Plan Meeting

To ensure your strategic plan meeting is productive, follow these best practices before, during, and after the meeting.

Made with Visme Infographic Maker

Before the Meeting

1. prepare background materials.

Develop and distribute background materials that provide context and information relevant to the strategic plan meeting. These materials might include a summary of previous strategic plans, a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis, or an overview of the organization's current situation.

By sharing these materials in advance, participants can familiarize themselves with the context and be better equipped to contribute to the discussions. This means sharing reports, business cases, project plans, and more.

2. Establish Ground Rules

Set ground rules for participation and communication to ensure a productive and inclusive meeting environment. These may include guidelines on active listening, staying on topic or respecting differing opinions. Communicate these rules to all participants ahead of the meeting and encourage everyone to follow them during discussions.

During the Meeting

3. encourage active participation.

Facilitate open communication and collaboration by encouraging all participants to share their ideas, insights, and perspectives. This can be done by creating a comfortable environment and using engaging techniques such as brainstorming, round-robin discussions, or small group activities.

It's crucial for the meeting leader to actively listen to participants, ask open-ended questions, and provide positive reinforcement to foster a sense of inclusivity.

4. Stay Focused and Manage Time

Keep the meeting on track by sticking to the agenda and putting time constraints.

Establish time limits for each topic and use a timer to ensure discussions stay focused. As the meeting facilitator, be prepared to intervene if the discussion veers off course and redirect the conversation back to the primary objectives.

After the Meeting

5. document and share outcomes.

Record the meeting's main takeaways, decisions and action items, and distribute these to all participants. This documentation should be clear, concise, and well-organized, making it easy for everyone to understand their responsibilities and deadlines. A shared document can keep everyone accountable and informed about progress.

Using Visme’s meeting minute templates is one of the best ways to take notes during the meeting. Take important notes about what was discussed, what actions were taken, future plans and anything else you find essential.

Here’s an example meeting minute template that you can use:

6. Evaluate and Reflect

After the meeting, take time to evaluate its effectiveness and identify areas for improvement. Solicit participant feedback to gain insights into what worked well and what could be improved. Reflect on this feedback and implement changes for future strategic plan meetings to ensure continuous improvement in the planning process.

Once the meeting is over, use an evaluation report to summarize the meeting's outcomes and better understand its effectiveness. Visme offers a variety of evaluation report templates that are customizable to fit your specific needs. Here’s an example template that you can use right now:

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some of the most frequently asked questions to provide you with additional information.

Q. What Do You Discuss in a Strategic Meeting?

In a strategic meeting, you should discuss your organization's long-term goals, objectives and priorities. Review your current status, identify opportunities and threats, analyze internal strengths and weaknesses and develop action plans to achieve the desired outcomes.

Also, touch on key topics like vision, mission, values, competitive landscape, market trends and resource allocation.

Q. What Are the Objectives of a Strategic Planning Meeting?

The primary objectives of a strategic planning meeting are to establish a shared vision, set long-term goals and objectives, identify opportunities and threats and determine priorities.

These meetings are also important for allocating resources and creating actionable plans to drive organizational growth, competitiveness and sustainability.

Q. What Questions Should I Ask in Strategic Planning?

When engaging in strategic planning, ask questions that help clarify your organization's vision, mission, and critical success factors. Some questions include: What is our overarching purpose? Who is our target audience? What sets us apart from our competitors? What vulnerability?

By asking these questions, you'll better understand your organization's strategic position and the steps needed to succeed.

Q. What to Expect at a Strategic Planning Meeting?

You can expect a well-organized agenda, lively discussions, and collaborative decision-making at a strategic planning meeting. Participants will evaluate the organization's present situation, brainstorm possible solutions, prioritize initiatives and formulate action plans.

Additionally, the meeting may incorporate team-building activities and offer opportunities for feedback.

Q. How Do You Run a Strategy Review Meeting?

To run a successful strategy review meeting, plan a clear agenda and prepare materials from the previous strategic planning meeting. Find ways to adjust the plan, assign new tasks and take other necessary steps to meet your organization's goals.

Q. What is a Strategic Planning Session Checklist?

A strategic planning session checklist includes key steps such as setting objectives, selecting participants, preparing materials, designing an agenda and arranging logistics. Additionally, it covers post-meeting tasks like distributing minutes, monitoring progress, and evaluating outcomes.

You can use checklist templates from Visme’s library to prepare your own to make sure you don’t miss out on anything.

Maximize Your Meetings & Project Planning with Visme

A successful strategic planning meeting is a critical tool for any organization that seeks to achieve its long-term goals and objectives. By following the steps outlined in this blog, you can effectively plan and facilitate a strategic planning meeting that leverages the diverse perspectives and expertise of everyone involved.

From defining the meeting's purpose and objectives to setting realistic goals and objectives, Visme's templates and features can help you create compelling visual aids that communicate the plan and engage participants.

With Visme's collaboration features and sharing options, you can efficiently work with all stakeholders in real-time and share your strategic plan beyond the confines of the meeting room.

However, running a successful meeting is just the beginning. To successfully run and grow your organization, you’ll need to create a lot of visual content. Visme has specific solutions for all your team members, from marketing collaterals and sales assets to internal content and brainstorming using whiteboards .

Sign-up for Visme teams today to make your meetings more productive and achieve your business goals.

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About the Author

Raja Antony Mandal is a Content Writer at Visme. He can quickly adapt to different writing styles, possess strong research skills, and know SEO fundamentals. Raja wants to share valuable information with his audience by telling captivating stories in his articles. He wants to travel and party a lot on the weekends, but his guitar, drum set, and volleyball court don’t let him.

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How to Lead A Successful Strategy Review Meeting

Ted Jackson

Ted is a Founder and Managing Partner of ClearPoint Strategy and leads the sales and marketing teams.

Transform your strategy review meetings into productive sessions with our guide. Discover how ClearPoint tools streamlines data collection, and follow-up.

Table of Contents

'Hey, are you ready for our meeting?' This is the dreaded question we hear so many times a day, in a work culture filled with meetings. You want your meeting to be the one that people don't dread. The one that has an agenda, clear goals, and everyone is prepared for. Use our guide to make sure that your strategy meetings are the ones that people look forward to (and dare we say, the ones that are fun).

After all, a key part of a successful strategy implementation process is getting everyone "rowing in the same direction." And if you’re a ClearPoint user—or considering using ClearPoint for strategy reporting—we’ve added some guidance around how to incorporate it seamlessly into your meetings, and use it to your best advantage.

ClearPoint Strategy offers a powerful platform that simplifies this process, providing tools to streamline meeting preparation, data collection, and follow-up. With ClearPoint , you can ensure that your strategy meetings are productive, focused, and drive meaningful outcomes.

See ClearPoint Strategy in action! Click here to watch a quick DEMO on the software

Part 1: an introduction to strategy review meetings.

If you want to improve performance in your organization, it all starts with strategy. Strategic objectives are vital to the success of your organization’s future. But, unfortunately, many organizations (nine out of 10 by some estimates) hold strategy review meetings and then fail to execute.

If you want to ensure the success and productivity of these meetings, you need leadership buy-in, and you’ll need to practice some specific steps. This guide delves into the five stages of holding an effective strategy review meeting:

• Defining The Process
• Meeting Preparation
• The Meeting
• Maintaining Momentum

Claim your FREE 40-page eBook to lead effective Strategy Review Meetings

What Are Strategy Review Meetings?

A strategy review meeting is exactly what it sounds like: a meeting focused entirely on strategy. It doesn’t matter what you call it (a business performance review, a data-driven review, a strategic review, a stat session, quarterly reporting, or even just a meeting with your organization’s leadership), there are factors that all strategy review meetings have in common—they are regularly-scheduled meetings that focus on using data to assess and improve progress on a number of priorities within an organization.

Oftentimes board meetings have an element of strategy review and reporting in them.

These meetings are all about strategic objectives (or goals). What is your organization trying to accomplish? Are you making progress toward these goals? What are you doing to improve your performance?

What Not To Do At A Strategy Review Meeting

A strategy meeting does not involve any discussion about operations. In strategy meetings, you should be asking questions like, “Are we showing results? Are we making an impact?” Save questions like, “What have you done this month? Are you on target to finish this project?” for an operations meeting.

In short, operations meetings measure, “Are we doing things right?” while strategy meetings measure, “Are we doing the right things?”

Why Should I Hold Strategy Review Meetings?

Did you know that leadership teams spend less than three hours a month on strategy, and nine out of 10 fail to execute? You need to beat the odds. It’ll require work, but it’s work that is well worth it.

Pre-scheduled, regular strategy review meetings (where all other topics of discussion are off-limits) can help your top management team avoid these common roadblocks. Do any of these sound like your organization?

• Top management teams spend relatively little time together.
• Agenda-setting is unfocused and undisciplined in upper management meetings.
• Top management meetings are not decision-oriented.
• Strategy and operations are usually combined into one meeting, but operations fire-fighting always crowds out strategy.

Both strategy review meetings and operations review meetings give you an opportunity to stop and look at data, but strategy review meetings take things a step further, allowing you to analyze what the data is telling you and make decisions about course-correction and adjustments.

Because it’s so easy to get caught up in day-to-day operations, strategy review meetings serve to keep strategic objectives at the center of the management process.

With strategy “at the center,” your measures reflect your strategic priorities, not just the common measures of the industry you are in. It also ensures that you fully execute on projects rather than just concentrating on your budget (without concern about whether or not projects get completed).

Typically, leadership teams and strategy offices spend one to two days a year developing strategic goals, but then go back to their jobs, where daily operations squeeze out strategy. The binder with all the strategic thinking and planning just gathers dust on the shelf. At the end of the year, organizations look back on their strategy and try to guess what they did well and what they didn’t.

They report on what they did, not what they said they would do. And by doing that, they’re missing something huge.

Let’s look at an example:

An upper-management team of a New England convenience store chain came up with a new strategy—“surprise and delight the customer.” They thought the shopping experience of their typical store was boring and that they needed to “mix things up.” So, every few days, they would reorganize their stores, thinking they were surprising and delighting their customers.

However, by looking at mystery shopper information in strategy review meetings, they learned very quickly that people hated it. Feedback they’d received indicated that the typical convenience store shopper visited that store because it was convenient—it was small and they could get in and out quickly because they knew exactly where to go.

Without regular strategy reviews, the management team would not have realized the negative impact of executing this particular strategy. It proves the old adage, “the only thing worse than bad news is bad news late.”

This story shows how important it is to check in on your strategic efforts. Of course, the realization that “our strategy isn’t the right strategy” isn’t the only reason you need to review your objectives. You may need to consider any of these possibilities: a changing environment, a new technology, budget cuts/increases, as well as a variety of other factors.

The ultimate goal is to implement your strategy. And the first step to making that happen is taking the time to review it. You know what they say, “what gets measured gets done.” But it’s not going to get measured unless it gets looked at.

That’s why it’s absolutely necessary to schedule time to look at your strategy and review it. Only then can you start having an impact.

What Are The Benefits?

Your organization has so much to gain through carrying out strategy review meetings. Here are just a few of the benefits:

Facilitating the identification and subsequent adoption of opportunities for improvement

There are a lot of good ideas that come from discussing key issues more broadly across the organization. For example, an oil and gas corporation communicated their strategy to all of their employees, and part of that strategy identified a target customer segment (middle- to upper-class women who wanted a clean, well-lit filling station and to feel safe while making purchases).

The IT department had already been innovating some near-field communication technology and developed a “speed purchase” tool to help this customer segment meet their needs by not having to pull out a wallet, which increased the speed of their purchase. It was wildly successful, and when it was implemented inside the convenience stores, it made for bigger purchases.

Providing a focused forum to identify winning and struggling areas or departments within your organization

When winning areas have been identified, best practices can be shared and implemented throughout the organization. Conversely, once struggling areas are brought to attention, you can decide if they need additional resources (either financial or human) to alter or invest in their strategy.

You can also pair similar departments to share best practices and support struggling areas.

Helping departments work collaboratively

Strategy meetings force departments to talk about key issues/thematic areas that they need to collaborate on. For example, take a soda company who has decided that by altering the look of their soda cans, they can become more efficient and save money.

Senior leadership thinks it’s a great idea and they move forward. However, the marketing department, who has no knowledge of this change, continues with their previous branding and marketing campaigns. When the error was recognized, the manufacturing changes cause the company to lose money.

A strategy review meeting could’ve helped the company avoid this mess.

Improving transparency and accountability

Strategy review meetings keep leadership informed of what is going on within every level of the organization. They cut through the inevitable force fields so leadership can engage and help mitigate those problems.

In addition, strategy review meetings help reinforce goals for the organization—they help departments feel accountable for progress toward those goals and encourage the work it takes to accomplish them.

Aligning resources and making informed budget decisions

Strategy review meetings highlight departments or programs that may need additional funding to be successful. They are also a good place to see if you are putting your money where your strategy is.

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Are there any prerequisites for strategy review meetings.

Absolutely. You can’t move forward with strategy review meetings unless these things are in place:

• Dedicated time on the calendar.
• Willingness to learn a new process and approach.
• Resources. Strategy review meetings are not just another staff meeting. They take preparation and follow-up. You will need people and time to make them successful.
• Engaged leadership.

Engaged leadership is the most important prerequisite. We know of a 200-million-dollar operation that decided at the senior executive level that they wanted to develop a balanced scorecard and hold strategy review meetings.

They hired consultants to come in and set up the process—everything was set up for success. However, during the first three meetings, the chief executive would kick-off the meeting, but then leave. In doing this, he signaled to the rest of the organization that there were more important things than their strategy review meetings.

As a result, the process failed within six months. Leadership in the organization sets the standards for what is acceptable and needs to lead by example. Those in leadership positions in your company need to understand “what’s in it for me” and “what’s in it for us,” and commit to spending time and engaging in the meetings.

Part 2: Defining The Strategy Review Process

To ensure successful strategy review meetings, you’ll need to make sure you clearly define the process. This means determining the right meeting attendees and creating a good information-gathering process.

Make sure your meetings are timely based on your organization’s goals. Get the team to buy in to the agenda and the outcomes of the meeting. Because these meetings take time and effort, reduce the burden of the leadership team as much as possible so they’re sustainable.

Who Should Attend Strategy Review Meetings?

Getting the right team in place is extremely important to the success of your strategy review meetings—you need people who understand the organization, can speak with authority, and get approvals. Continuity in attendance is also critical.

This team will more than likely include the CEO (Managing Director, Executive Director, City Manager, etc.), and her direct reports. If you are discussing a particular project, then the project manager should be in attendance. If you are looking at new data, the data collector should be there. If there is poor or exemplary performance in a particular department, then have the director of that department attend. Just make sure you have the appropriate people for the agenda being discussed.

In most cases, you should include staff-level participants. After all, they have the subject matter expertise, and staff are often the parties truly doing the work—they can provide more context for discussions. But think of the staff members as “special teams”—they’re not in the room all the time, but are there to cover specific items as necessary.

What happens if the right people aren’t in the room?

One school district was grappling with recruiting teachers. At their strategy review meeting, they were attempting to delve into the issues surrounding this challenge—in particular, how do they develop a more substantial pipeline of qualified teachers?

The people who could have answered that question, however, weren’t there. The talent management chief and HR representative were both absent, so they couldn’t shed light on what they had tried that didn’t work or what particular challenges they needed help overcoming.

Without these people in the room, the discussion around this challenge proved useless, frustrating for all involved, and no decisions could be made.

Who Should Not Attend Strategy Review Meetings?

There are a few reasons why someone shouldn’t be invited to these meetings. Here’s a list of criteria you should run through to make sure you aren’t choosing the wrong people:

• Don’t invite someone at the wrong level of your organization that might misconstrue the discussion, or that wouldn’t be a good representative.
• Don’t invite someone who wouldn’t know what to divulge to others and what to keep to themselves.
• Don’t invite someone who can’t see the big picture outside of their project, or one who wants to discuss the details of their project ad nauseam.

At a strategy review meeting, participants do not need to know strategy specifics (like the next topic of your marketing department’s ebook). They just need to know if a particular strategy is on track and on budget. If there are problems, then they should be discussed, but the meeting participants shouldn’t get entangled in the details.

When Should Strategy Review Meetings Be Held?

As a basic rule, you should always make sure your meetings are timely. When scheduling, ask yourself, “When is new data available?”

If the meeting focuses on your fall strategy, then it should be held quarterly. If your meeting is thematic or department-focused, then it should be held more frequently—monthly or every six weeks.

In general, quarterly meetings should be held within 30 days of the end of the quarter, and monthly meetings should be held within 10 days of the end of the month.

For example, a line manufacturing organization has their meetings on the tenth day after the end of each monthly close. Data is due on day seven, a review document is sent on day eight, and the information is discussed on day 10.

The meeting isn’t focused on how many widgets have been produced—it’s more about adjusting to more profitable widgets and customers, improving the forecasting process, planning for raw material costs, and developing new partnerships in appropriate niches.

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How do i get these meetings started.

Since these meetings take time and require team buy-in, here are some tips to help get things started:

• Check out the current executive meeting calendar. See what meetings can be modified or replaced. Try your best not to add to meeting time—instead, try to make better use of the meeting time you already have. If the leadership team already meets weekly, see if you can adjust one of the meetings each month to be more focused on strategy. If the team already meets monthly, see if you can adjust one meeting each quarter for strategy.
• Ensure that the top executive is engaged in and supports the process. They need to be able to take on a leadership role during the meeting. They may need to be engaged in the preparation depending on the subject being discussed.
• Create a set of common objectives and benefits for each of the team members invited.
• Include departments in meeting design. This will ensure that it is a collaborative process and will help with organizational buy-in. The success of these meetings hinges not only on leadership engagement, but also getting an organization to work together in providing timely data reporting . Departments should feel like willing participants and see these meetings as a useful tool to improve program performance.
• Be realistic when you start. At first, these meetings will seem like a lot of work. That’s because they are. They’re both a different way of reporting and a different way of managing. But, over time, with commitment, the meetings will get better and more effective. It’s not unusual for meetings to shrink as much as 75% in length as the participants get used to the format.

It’s not unusual for meetings to shrink as much as 75% in length as the participants get used to the format.

How Should Strategy Review Meetings Be Structured?

How Can I Reduce The Burden?

These meetings are a lot of work. So, to the extent possible, put standardization processes in place. Determine a set calendar for meeting dates and reporting deadlines, and then stick to it.

Standardize forms for collecting data or invest in online reporting tools that can greatly reduce staff burden and free up time for them to do a more substantial data analysis. This will generate better discussion at your meetings.

Standardized processes can include the following:

• Data-collecting forms .
• A timeline —from sending out the data call, to the meeting invitations, to sending a follow-up note and so forth.
• Invite lists —have consistent invite lists for each meeting.
• Key contact lists —know who to contact for what in each department. Is there a contact within the department who can coordinate data collection, notify you of staffing changes if someone else should now be attending the meeting, and answer any clarification questions you have around the data or program specifics?
• A process for capturing and monitoring action items —if this follows a set model every time, you are less likely to get pushback.
• A process for data collection and report generation —after you conduct two or more meetings, this will be easier to work on automating.

If your organization is new to using strategy reporting software, then an important part of this first stage should be to consider how that software tool will be integrated into your meetings and reporting preparation.

Companies that use ClearPoint not only spend less time on reporting, but they also have more focused and productive strategy meetings than those using Excel, SharePoint, or any other reporting alternative .

Some things you can do that will set the stage for success are:

• Determine which members of your team will be using the software. Give them step-by-step instructions on how to update their data, including screenshots.
• Document the processes for updating information within ClearPoint and creating the reports needed for the strategy meeting. This is important in case of turnover or employee absences.
• Set up the various summary reports you’ll be using within your ClearPoint account. Review them with users and explain their significance.
• Determine and set user permissions based on roles and responsibilities for reporting.
• Create RAG (red, amber, green) status rules that will define how each of your elements is performing.
• Provide links to the ClearPoint login page and a link to the support center.

Part 3: Meeting Preparation

Schedule a meeting time and collect the necessary data. Make sure you receive all the data in enough time to analyze it and write a report. Then, create an agenda and send it (along with the data analysis report) to meeting attendees in advance so they can prepare. It’s important to pave a path of success starting with the first meeting—teach meeting participants exactly what strategy review meetings are, establish a tone of trust and collaboration, and adopt a decision-making process.

1. Schedule A Meeting Time & Prepare Data

Once you put your meeting on the calendar, it’s time to begin collecting data. Here are some things to think through and action steps to take as you begin the preparation process.

• Make attendance mandatory. When necessary, draft emails for leadership to send to ensure that everyone who needs to be in the meeting is there. This is where leadership commitment comes into play. A strategy review meeting without the right people in the room is an expensive waste of time.
• Limit the number of participants. Conversely, too many people can detract from the conversation. Make sure the people in the room are people who might be called on to actively participate in the meeting.
• Request accurate data in a timely manner. Inevitably, some departments will be late providing this information, or out on vacation when you need it, so make sure the meeting is scheduled out far enough in advance so that there is ample time to gather the data. (Do not reward late behavior—if you don’t have the data necessary, just skip the review and force those with the missing data to lead the discussion the second time.)
• Review data. Go through the most recent data and write an analysis about trends or emerging issues. Keeping consistent charts for presenting data is really helpful and will speed up your meeting.
• Update status indicators. Update green/yellow/red status indicators for each measure and initiative.

Make a report. Include data, your data analysis, and status indicator updates. Remember to keep your report format consistent from one meeting to the next.

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2. create an agenda, what to cover.

To ensure that you’ll be using your meeting time wisely, think through these questions as you begin to develop your agenda.

• The focus of the meeting should be on making decisions, not having discussions.
• Operations meetings should be separate from strategy meetings.
• Before you add an item to the agenda, measure it’s real value.

To help you as you’re choosing topics of discussion, ask yourself questions like:

• Why are we having this meeting?
• What do we need to have accomplished when we are done?
• What are the key issues we should cover?

Keep in mind that a strategy review meeting agenda may just look like a review of goals, measures, and initiatives, a validation of strategy, and a continuation of current strategic projects and direction. Every meeting does not have to include “bet the company” decisions.

An Example Agenda

3. Get People Ready

You’ll need to prep the leadership and attendees effectively if you want your strategy review meeting to be a success. Provide materials ahead of time so they can familiarize themselves with the content and formulate their own questions.

This means once you’ve finished writing the report of your data analysis and created an agenda, you should send them to both leadership and participants immediately. The data should be presented with recommended decisions in advance of the meeting. If everyone comes to the meeting prepared, it will allow for a more efficient use of time.

Sending recommendations before the meeting doesn’t mean a decision has taken place—it just allows the leadership team to prepare appropriately. To ensure that this is successful, consider pre-presenting and talking through the materials with leadership.

Feel free to be open about what will be discussed so that everyone is prepared and feels that the process is transparent. (This will also help to make sure that the right people are in the room.)

4. Make The First Meeting A Success

• Provide training on why you’re doing these meetings and how they should be run. (For example, share this post with the team.)
• Give an overview of the language and provide a tutorial session on performance measures because not everyone speaks that language.
• Teach or brief all participants on what strategy review meetings are and what they are not. Make sure people understand the difference between strategy and operations, and ownership vs. accountability.

- Strategy : A strategy is a long-term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. Strategy is differentiated from tactics or immediate actions with resources at hand by its nature of being extensively premeditated, and often practically rehearsed. Strategies are used to make the problem or problems easier to understand and solve. Organization strategy typically describes a future state, as well as the process of getting to that place. Some people describe it as a destination, as well as a description of the road to take in order to get to the destination.

-Operations : The daily and weekly job of ensuring that your standard procedures are operating as expected.

-Ownership : In regard to strategy review meetings, this is the person that is responsible for knowing and understanding particular objectives or goals. They would be responsible for reporting about the progress being made to achieve the objectives and the actions being taken to close gaps.

-Accountability : This term usually goes hand-in-hand with “ownership,” and implies that a person is not only responsible for knowing and understanding particular objectives or goals, but is also responsible for the achievement of key measures. This is not always the case in a strategy review meeting because many of the goals require multiple people and teams across the organization to work well together to achieve the goals.

• Consider scripting the first meeting, or having an outside facilitator sit in the first few meetings to ensure the process works (even if decisions aren’t made or the discussion is not high quality yet).

Setting the right tone is extremely important—it should be one of trust and collaboration. Establish principles to build that trust. For example, trust can be built by providing a framework for the review process and collaboratively agreeing on the principles by which the review would operate.

Decision-Making

There are two extremes in a decision-making process. One is when those on a leadership team talk, come to a consensus on the issue, and then move forward. The other is when a CEO or director makes a decision—he or she might use input from the leadership team to inform the decision, but the final decision is made by an individual.

What is your decision making process? Would everyone in your organization agree or is the process unclear?

Whatever the case, make sure you adopt a common decision-making process. Below is an example of one that could be held in your organization. Be especially cognizant of how step four works (making a decision).

ClearPoint ’s strength is in preparing the reports that serve as the basis for strategy meetings.

Preparing, requesting, and reviewing data is easier in ClearPoint than any other strategy software available. Set up the various automations that will save you time:

• Automatic data uploads pull data from your specified sources on a schedule.
• Automatic reminders nudge users to update manual data, projects, and qualitative information.
• Automatic evaluations objectively assess your strategic elements based on your predetermined criteria (whether you’re on or off target)
• An automatic report generator produces your monthly reports on schedule.

Design your meeting agenda in ClearPoint in the format of a summary report, with each item on the agenda hyperlinked to the associated report for easy access to the data.

Schedule automatic sending of pre-reads to anyone taking part in the meeting, so participants can prepare their thoughts ahead of time. Reports and agendas can be exported as PDFs, posted on intranets, or even printed as hard copies. Having that distribution flexibility makes it possible to get more people involved in strategy and leadership decisions; it also keeps information consistent and organized across many divisions.

The bottom line: ClearPoint’s automation features save a ton of time—you can create and distribute reports just a few days after month-end. Compare that to the time it would otherwise take to manually collect data and build new PowerPoint decks meeting after meeting, and you can easily see how beneficial it is to use software!

Part 4: The Meeting

Encourage candid dialogue and critique in the meeting itself—people tend to want to focus on the positives, but discussing the negatives is critical. Take notes about everything discussed, including action items, so that the meeting is productive. It’s important to use your participants’ time wisely, so don’t be afraid to keep everyone task-oriented. (Use that agenda you created!)

In order to stay on track, do a “pulse check” every so often—if your conversation has gotten off-topic or more in-depth than you thought it would, consider saving it for another meeting and moving on.

Meeting Tips

• Look at yourself critically. People want to put a positive spin on things. Don’t. If there is negative information, it should be included and even a focus of the meeting.
• Use participants’ time wisely. Keep meetings to an appropriate length. Use “bullet formatting” instead of narrative to elucidate important points.
• Use facilitation techniques. Don’t let the meeting agenda get derailed.
• Have a “parking lot” for issues that arise that may warrant further discussion but are not appropriate for this meeting.
• Stick to the agenda at all times if possible. Try to adjust for a future meeting, but not the current meeting. Remember, you are changing behavior and teaching people to use time effectively.
• Promote candid dialogue. Encourage people to speak up. Make sure they know that this is not meant to be punitive, but a collaborative process driving a continuous dialogue. This may need to be prompted in the first few meetings.

Someone should always be jotting things down. You need to be capturing action items, recommendations, and decisions during the meeting.

There are two types of action items—those that are already approved by the leadership, and those which are potential action items that will be identified for the future. The potential actions items need to go to leadership for approval, which takes time and planning. Those action items might be relevant for discussion and consideration at future review meetings.

Once the meeting is through, review action items as a whole to ensure consensus and assign responsibility and due dates. Make sure you have accountability for every action item before leaving.

Stay On Track

What do you do if your meeting derails? Try scheduling breaks and determine if the content you are working on is appropriate for this particular meeting.

Do a “pulse check” every so often. Are we going to make a decision now, or should we have a separate meeting? Is this something we should table or ask a smaller team to make more progress on before it comes back to this team of people? Some difficult decisions could be worth sending your agenda off track. However, if you think you have an additional half hour of discussion left and you don’t think you’re going to make progress, then it’s not worth it to keep discussing it.

If you know your leadership team gets distracted regularly, try starting the first meeting with two questions: “What typically derails these meetings? How can we prevent that during this meeting?” This will give the facilitator permission to keep the meeting on track.

ClearPoint helps keep the discussion focused during strategy meetings. We recommend using conference room screens to project and easily view summary reports, which you can then use as a visual for your various discussion points as you run the meeting.

In addition:

• Take advantage of the fact that all your strategy data is housed in ClearPoint. You can quickly and easily drill down into supporting data to help explain performance if questions come up.
• Take meeting notes directly in ClearPoint as they are discussed, capturing action items, recommendations, and decisions.
• Review the action items at the end as a group to ensure consensus, assign responsibility, and attach due dates.

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Part 5: the follow-up.

The meeting can’t be a success without following up afterward to make sure action is taken on the decisions that were made. Distribute the notes you took during the meeting to both the meeting participants and anyone else in the organization who needs them.

And set up a process for tracking action items and due dates so things don’t slip through the cracks. Throughout the process, think critically about your measures.

You Aren’t Done Yet

• In order for strategy review meetings to be a success, you can’t just walk away when the meeting is over. There are several follow-up steps you need to take.
• It’s important to distribute notes to meeting attendees within 24 hours of the meeting—this is when decisions are fresh and enthusiasm is high. Don’t miss this window of opportunity! Actions happen most often after meeting minutes are released.
• Make sure you’re communicating with everyone necessary. Depending on the meeting and the content, you may want to send a second set of meeting notes to the rest of the organization to ensure that key decisions have been communicated.
• Next, set up a process for tracking action items and due dates. Reach out to responsible parties to do a status-check on action items or send reminders a week or two before they’re due.
• Finally, at start of the subsequent review meeting, review and recap each of the action items.

Think Critically About Your Measures

• Remember to use your meeting to re-assess your performance measures. Which measures are working well and should be kept? Which performance measures should be dropped or replaced because they aren’t really telling us how the objective is doing?
• Manage any changing of measures to be proposed outside of the meeting and run future meetings with the current and the proposed to get consensus that the proposed is providing better information than the current, not just a rosier picture for the person accountable for the measure.
• Try to make sure targets are not constantly changing during the year, but do note underperformance or major shifts in the assumptions around the initial target setting process. (If targets are constantly changing, then the organization loses focus and any sense of urgency or realism to a strategic planning process.)

At the end of the meeting, review the list of action items you created in ClearPoint . Distribute the notes you took during the meeting to both the meeting participants and anyone else in the organization who needs them, within 24 hours (when decisions are fresh and enthusiasm is high!). Make sure the relevant people can access the data in ClearPoint as they work to complete their action items before the next meeting.

Part 6: Maintaining Momentum

Sustainability is about culture change. You need to generate an understanding of the process and get buy-in—make sure everyone involved understands what the process is and why you’re doing it. (Especially leadership.)

Work on continually improving and streamlining your processes in order to reduce the burden on everyone involved; make the procedure for each meeting repeatable.

Keeping Momentum Is About Establishing Good Habits

Your goal should be making the strategy review process a part of your company’s “business as usual.” Keep the meetings relevant and leadership engaged.

How do you ensure that senior leadership engagement? First and foremost, make sure decisions get made in your meetings. The meetings need to be focused solely on strategy with active and candid dialogue in order to get things accomplished. Other than the meeting itself, leadership involvement isn’t particularly time-intensive, so capitalize on the time that they are involved.

Then, make sure results happen based on the decisions you make so leadership can see that it is making a difference.

Identify lessons learned and how to improve the process going forward. Again, make sure your meetings stay relevant. Rate the quality of each meeting after it’s finished—what would you change? How could you do it better? Listen and react quickly as a meeting facilitator. Work carefully with the top executive to ensure you are delivering value.

You also need to generate an understanding of the process and get buy-in—make sure everyone involved understands what the process is and why you’re doing it. Allow them the opportunity to give feedback/make recommendations. This process is meant to be helpful for everyone, so make sure to work with each department to ensure that the process will also meet their needs.

Make The Process Repeatable

In order to make strategy review meetings sustainable, they can’t be a burden. So make sure they aren’t! A great analyst and reporting staff can make this seamless. Giving access to information on mobile products, sending automated emails, and pre-reading of the highlights are critical.

Follow these steps to streamline your meeting process.

• Ensure a timeline.
• Automate data requests.
• Use technology to standardize the format of your data. A consistent set of charts means that time in meetings will be spent wisely.
• Allow visibility between meetings.
• Don’t allow leadership to miss meetings —make these strategy meetings the most important review meeting each month.
• Ensure you have a clean history of meeting actions and that there is follow-through.
• Constantly check on the value of the meetings. (You may even want to give a simple survey about the meetings after they’re through—have attendees rate the meeting on a scale of 1-5. Ask them what they would change.

ClearPoint makes it significantly easier to maintain the momentum of strategy reporting over the long term. To take full advantage of the software—and ensure you reach your goals:

• Utilize the numerous automation features to reduce the burden of reporting (which means you can focus on strategy instead)
• Allow visibility of strategy data between meetings, to maintain enthusiasm around goal-setting and achievements
• Consistently highlight the links between department and individual performance and organizational goals
• Continuously evaluate your reporting process and meeting effectiveness

Use a Three Year/Five Year Strategic Plan to keep your momentum when going for long term goals

Part 7: mistakes to avoid when leading strategy meetings.

To ensure the success of your strategy review meetings, avoid having the wrong people in the room and unengaged leadership. Stay away from time-consuming prep, but make sure that everyone is prepared enough for the meeting to be effective.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in “the big picture,” so remember that you also need action items and measures you can manage as takeaways from your meetings. And, of course, always follow up. Follow-through on action items is critical to these strategy meetings making a difference in your organization.

Common Roadblocks To Avoid

• Unengaged leadership : We can’t mention this one enough. If your leadership isn’t engaged, then your attendees won’t be either. The future success of your meetings depends on leadership buy-in.
• Poor data quality or poor response to data call : The data won’t be perfect at first—just make sure it evolves. You may have to push departments to provide data at first. It’s okay if participants feel that they don’t have sufficient data—use these meetings as a forcing mechanism for them to start collecting it.
• An improper balance between intermediate outcome measures and output measures : You need to be looking at outcomes and “the big picture,” but you also need action items and measures you can manage.
• Time-consuming prep : Streamlining every process and making things repeatable is crucial.
• The wrong people in the room : Remember, meeting attendees need to understand the organization, be able to speak with authority, and get approvals.
• No follow-up : If there isn’t any follow-up, you’ve just wasted everyone’s time! Follow-through on action items is critical to these strategy meetings making a difference in your organization.
• No valuable discussion : This meeting is not a “show and tell” for everything a department is doing. It is meant to have targeted discussions around key success or problem areas.

Behaviors That Will Derail Your Meeting

People can be as challenging as the process. Don’t allow these few behaviors to get in the way of meeting progress.

• Complexity —don’t allow presenters to get entangled in the details. Keep the conversation at the right level by limiting the agenda and having a facilitator manage what is presented.
• “Siloed” —only present information that is relevant to the strategy for the people in the room. There is no need for a business unit to present information that is not connected to the enterprise strategy.
• Doubting numbers —do not allow any fighting about the numbers. They are what they are. Make it a point to clean up the source for the next meeting, but do not waste time during your current meeting fighting the data. Your meeting isn’t about details—it’s about strategy.
• Forgetfulness —do not tolerate executives ignoring their prep work. Show it as blank and let the CEO or equivalent manage the non-performer. Heap praise on those that are doing great work and contributing. Do everything you can to reward good behavior.

Because ClearPoint was designed specifically to solve the problems that stand in the way of strategy execution, using it will help you avoid most of the mistakes above (with the exception of engaged leadership—there’s not much we can do there!).

ClearPoint :

• Ensures the continuous availability of accurate data. Since ClearPoint can pull data automatically from your various repositories, it makes quick work of gathering the quantitative data your team needs to make decisions. It also helps you get the accompanying qualitative data by sending automated reminders to data owners. Both types of data can be viewed together in ClearPoint for easier decision-making.
• Reduces the manual burden of strategy reporting. We’ve automated 70% of the process, so you can produce reports in a more timely manner—and with fewer man-hours.
• Encourages more productive strategy meetings. Use ClearPoint to create better, more targeted reports. They are easier for participants to understand and follow, and help maintain focus on overall strategy (rather than on operations or individual efforts). It also supports meeting follow-up.
• Provides a balanced view of big-picture organizational goals and measures, projects, and action items. All the data you house in ClearPoint is considered “strategic,” which means it should relate to projects that will help you accomplish your larger goals. The way ClearPoint is set up makes it easy to both keep track of key measures and actions, and how they tie into the big picture.

Don’t just take our word for it—read some of our customer stories to see the positive impact ClearPoint has had on their strategy execution efforts!

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Part 8: important points to remember.

If you want to improve performance in your organization, it all starts with strategy. Strategic objectives are vital to the success of your organization’s future. But, unfortunately, many organizations (nine out of 10 by some estimates) set bold strategic goals and fail to execute.

If you want to increase the odds of success, then you need to have effective and regular strategy review meetings. You’ll need leadership buy-in, and you’ll need to practice some specific steps. There are five stages of holding an effective strategy review meeting: defining the process, meeting preparation, the meeting itself, follow-up, and maintaining momentum.

1. Defining The Process

To ensure successful strategy review meetings, you’ll need to make sure you clearly define the process. This means determining the right meeting attendees and creating a good information-gathering process. Make sure your meetings are timely based on your organization’s goals. Get the team to buy in to the agenda and the outcomes of the meeting. Because these meetings take time and effort, reduce the burden of the leadership team as much as possible so they’re sustainable.

2. Meeting Preparation

3. the meeting.

Encourage candid dialogue and critique in the meeting itself—people tend to want to focus on the positives, but discussing the negatives is critical. Take notes about everything discussed, including action items, so that the meeting is productive. It’s important to use your participants’ time wisely, so don’t be afraid to keep everyone task-oriented. (Use that agenda you created!) In order to stay on track, do a “pulse check” every so often—if your conversation has gotten off-topic or more in-depth than you thought it would, consider saving it for another meeting and moving on.

4. Follow-Up

The meeting can’t be a success without following up afterward to make sure action is taken on the decisions that were made. Distribute the notes you took during the meeting to both the meeting participants and anyone else in the organization who needs them. And set up a process for tracking action items and due dates so things don’t slip through the cracks. Throughout the process, think critically about your measures.

5. Maintaining Momentum

Sustainability is about culture change. You need to generate an understanding of the process and get buy-in—make sure everyone involved understands what the process is and why you’re doing it. (Especially leadership.) Work on continually improving and streamlining your processes in order to reduce the burden on everyone involved; make the procedure for each meeting repeatable.

It is possible to have regularly-scheduled, productive strategy review meetings within your organization. Follow the steps outlined in this guide, and you’ll see what a huge impact it can have on the success of your company!

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How can i ensure that the right people are in the strategy meeting room.

To ensure that the right people are in the strategy meeting room:

- Identify Key Stakeholders: Include individuals who have a significant impact on strategy development and implementation. - Define Roles and Responsibilities: Clearly outline each participant’s role and contribution to the meeting. - Invite Decision-Makers: Ensure that decision-makers and those with authority are present to facilitate effective decision-making. - Consider Cross-Functional Representation: Include representatives from different departments to provide diverse perspectives. - Communicate Expectations: Brief attendees on their expected contributions and the meeting’s objectives in advance.

What are some ways to keep leadership engaged in strategy meetings?

To keep leadership engaged in strategy meetings:

- Set Clear Objectives: Define the meeting’s goals and expected outcomes beforehand. - Facilitate Active Participation: Encourage leaders to share their insights and actively participate in discussions. - Use Data and Insights: Present relevant data and insights to support strategic discussions and decisions. - Highlight Impact: Emphasize how strategic decisions will impact the organization’s overall goals and success. -Follow Up: Provide regular updates on progress and follow up on action items to maintain engagement.

How can I make sure data is collected and analyzed in a timely manner?

To ensure data is collected and analyzed in a timely manner:

- Establish Clear Processes: Set up standardized processes for data collection and analysis. - Use Technology: Implement data management and analytics tools to streamline data handling. - Assign Responsibilities: Designate specific team members to be responsible for data collection and analysis. - Set Deadlines: Establish clear deadlines for data submission and analysis to ensure timely availability. - Regular Reviews: Conduct regular reviews of data collection and analysis processes to identify and address any bottlenecks.

What are some best practices for creating an agenda for a strategy meeting?

Best practices for creating an agenda for a strategy meeting include:

- Define Objectives: Clearly outline the meeting’s purpose and goals. - Prioritize Topics: Focus on high-priority strategic issues and limit the number of topics to avoid overload. - Allocate Time: Assign specific time slots for each agenda item to ensure a balanced discussion. - Include Preparation Materials: Provide relevant materials and data in advance for participants to review. - Set Action Items: Identify expected outcomes and action items for each agenda point.

How can I avoid getting bogged down in the minutiae of operations during a strategy meeting?

To avoid getting bogged down in the minutiae of operations during a strategy meeting:

- Set Clear Objectives: Focus on strategic goals and objectives rather than operational details. - Create a Focused Agenda: Limit the agenda to high-level strategic topics and avoid operational discussions. - Assign Operational Issues: Delegate operational issues to separate meetings or specific team members. - Use a Facilitator: Have a meeting facilitator to steer discussions back to strategic topics when necessary. - Encourage Strategic Thinking: Promote a culture of strategic thinking by encouraging participants to focus on long-term goals and impacts

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17 Creative Annual Company Meeting Ideas & Activities

By: Grace He | Updated: August 23, 2024

Here is a list of the best annual company meeting ideas and activities .

Annual company meetings ideas are ways to engage staff during yearly companywide gatherings. Examples include budgeting brainstorms, innovation imagination sessions, and speed hackathons. These exercises improve collaboration and activity and keep audiences engaged and entertained throughout the event.

These gatherings are similar to all-hands meetings , company retreats , and conference breakout sessions .

This list includes:

• fun company meeting ideas
• annual company meeting topics
• yearly company meeting activities
• games for yearly meetings

Let’s get started!

List of annual company meeting ideas and activities

From innovative imagination sessions to office charades and office Bingo, here is a list of the company meeting ideas.

1. Budgeting Brainstorms

Budgets are standard annual company meeting topics. During many company summits, leaders announce the budget for the coming year, review spending from the past year, and break down budgets monthly, quarterly, or departmentally. These conversations help executives and employees understand a company’s financial standing and be more conscious of spending. The conversations can help workers avoid excess expenses and identify operational areas that need more funding.

Discussing budgets doesn’t have to be a long and boring affair. You can make budgeting fun by making the members of staff active participants in the budgeting process.

For this event:

• Present the attendees with all financial records for the current business year through a slide show.
• Split the teammates into groups and each group has to develop effective budget-saving ideas.
• The teams will present these ideas to the company’s representatives.
• The teammates have to highlight the pros and cons of their ideas and be ready to help apply these ideas in the office.
• The representatives will review these ideas and choose the best.

This activity ensures that members can consider cost and budgeting when making decisions for the company. Your employees will also enjoy this event as they will get the opportunity to share innovative ideas and interact with teammates.

2. Innovative Imagination Sessions

There is always room for innovation. Therefore, professionals should get opportunities to share their innovative ideas and unique discoveries. Innovative sessions make the best yearly company meeting activities because these exercises allow employees to show off their skills and interact with like-minded teammates. Remote teams can also host innovative sessions on Zoom or via Google Meet.

To organize innovative sessions at the office:

• Split the attendees into groups.
• Each group gets an hour to come up with any idea that may benefit different business sectors. For example, the groups may decide to redesign the company’s logo, come up with a short ad for the company’s media pages or develop new, marketing strategies for a new product or service.
• The company’s representatives will review these ideas and choose the top three.
• The company can then apply these ideas to the business and give due credit to the brains behind these innovative ideas.

The innovative sessions allow members of staff to tackle challenges or develop new ideas that may help to achieve the company’s goals. Innovative sessions result in productive meetings and also provide an opportunity for the staff to work as a team, thereby enhancing their team spirit. Everyone at the meeting gets to work on various skills, such as leading, creating, and practicing collaboration while having fun.

Here is a list of books on innovation .

Get our free team building toolbox

• icebreaker games
• bingo cards

3. Brunch and Learn

Brunch meetings make a good company meeting idea. To organize this event, you will need a comfortable space, preferably the office conference room or a restaurant close to the office.

At this event, you can:

• brainstorm ways to improve employee wellness
• foster collaborative creativity with mini projects
• train attendees on the use of a new software
• talk through company issues and case studies
• listen to speakers talk about subjects like allyship, financial planning, and time management
• announce upcoming changes to the company policies and procedures

You can order various meals and snacks for attendees to enjoy during the meeting or allow the teammates to order what they like. This activity sets an informal meeting environment that allows teammates to relax. Brunch is also a great way for teammates to feel refreshed during these meetings.

Similarly, here is a list of virtual lunch and learn ideas .

4. Annual Meeting Charades

Charades are fun company meeting ideas that can re-energize groups and liven up long presentations. The teammates can play charades after the meeting or even during a short break.

• Players break into groups.
• Each group chooses a representative.
• The representative receives a prompt.
• The representative acts out these prompts without speaking while other teammates try to guess the item.
• Players only have a limited amount of time to guess the prompt each round, ideally three minutes or less.

Some examples of prompt ideas include office activities like making copies, brewing coffee, and reacting to malfunctioning computers. Even better, you can theme the prompts around organizational events that happened within the past year, for example, making your millionth sale or launching a new location.

For extra fun, make Charades a competition and pit managers against employees or department against department. The teams who express their prompts most clearly and guess the most correct number of answers in the shortest amount of time will win a prize.

Here is a charades generator for inspiration.

5. Speedy Hackathons

Hackathons are opportunities for managers, designers, and project managers to collaborate intensively on spontaneous projects. Hackathons are often brain-racking and a good way to build the spirit of teamwork. For this reason, speedy hackathons make excellent annual company meeting activities.

Speedy hackathons make yearly meetings more exciting. You can split attendees into groups and each group gets to brainstorm a solution to a problem or build a prototype. This exercise originated in the software world as a way to develop new apps, programs, and products. However, you can also assign more general tasks like designing a new logo, label, or motto for the company. This activity will keep attendees busy and engaged. At the end of the exercise, teams will present their products, and judges will choose a winner.

Here is a guide to doing virtual hackathons .

6. Team Win Pep Rally

Beginning meetings on a good note makes the meeting more relaxing and enjoyable. Discussing a win can sometimes be all the encouragement team members need to do even better. This activity highlights the achievements of important members of staff, offers recognition for team wins, and encourages other members of staff to put in their best efforts in the coming business year.

During this event:

• announce a new member of staff or the staff of the year
• acknowledge employees or members of staff who have helped the company secure projects or contracts in the last year
• give honorary awards if necessary
• show a slideshow so that staff can place faces to wins
• encourage the crowd to cheer and hive five staff. feel free to pass out noisemakers to make the applause more momentous

This activity aims to acknowledge team efforts and individual achievements with a swell of crowd support.

Check out more employee recognition ideas .

7. Annual Meeting Bingo

It is important to keep attendees entertained during annual company meetings. Games are the best way to break the ice. Annual Meeting Bingo is one of the best games for yearly meetings. To play, you need to create Bingo cards.

Here is a template we made for your game:

Get Just the Bingo Card

Everyone at the meeting gets to engage in this activity and you get to know how well your employees know each other. Mingling to find folks who fit the descriptions will also help employees learn more about each other. Those players with the highest correct guesses can get to pick the next game or get a reward for their good observatory skills.

For more game options, check out this Icebreaker Bingo generator .

8. Show and Tell

Starting a meeting on a light note is a good idea, and a show and tell is ideal to begin your meeting in the right tone. This activity allows staff members to tell each other something new about themselves. During the meeting, you can encourage employees to show a special item and explain its significance. Attendees can get to show a funny or hilarious comment from a client, an office tool that came in handy, or a snack that fueled the teammates through their work that year.

This activity is a good way to learn more about coworkers. A show and tell is a good game for yearly meetings. Asides from the fun, you get to know more about the other person. However, if you expect participants to show objects, then give guests a heads-up pre-meeting so that they can bring these items to the meeting space!

9. Company Event Previews

Annual meetings are great opportunities to share plans for upcoming company events. This idea is important because it allows team members to plan accordingly and can boost turnout for upcoming gatherings. The teammates can also suggest activities and events that can be included in the company’s calendar. For example, employees may suggest that the company includes a single fun fair day for the company’s staff in the calendar. The company’s representative may share the details of the events that have already been highlighted for the coming business year and give employees a chance to offer suggestions or contributions.

To give the teammates a chance to visualize these events, the representative can set up a slide or screen to show the teammates how these events were planned, the budget set aside for each, and even discuss potential venues. Examples of these events include business conferences, office parties, and trade shows. Members who intend to give their input can share their concerns and help those in charge of the event to plan better.

Pro tip: Provide a calendar so that team members can keep track of these events.

Here is a list of team building event ideas .

10. Evaluation Stations

Evaluations are appraisals of the year’s projects, activities, and events. You can also assess teams, departments, sub-departments, and other sub-divisions within the company.

One great idea during yearly company events is to set up stations where employees can leave feedback and gain performance summaries of different parts of the company. For example, you can set up suggestion boxes where team members can pass along ideas and constructive criticism or praise for their peers. You can also turn the reports into a fun game by asking attendees to fill out a “pop quiz” with questions about these presentations, and awarding prizes to folks who complete this activity.

These stations are a great space to set up surveys and run mini-focus groups. You can set up these stations in common areas and attendees can visit the tables and review the data during breaks.

Pro tip: Capture attendees’ attention and incentive participation by including swag and snacks.

11. Guess the Metrics

Annual meetings are an avenue to look through the company’s metrics. Presenters often go over numbers in areas such as company sales, revenue, new client acquisition, social media insights, customer satisfaction scores, and new product launches. This review helps employees understand the company’s recent performance and brainstorm ways to be better. These conversations also help employees understand and set upcoming strategies.

Rather than announce numbers the traditional way of graphs on PowerPoint slides, you can turn these reviews into a fun and interactive game show activity. For example, you can draw inspiration from The Price is Right by playing a “closest without going over” challenge.

For this activity, teammates must guess the closest figures for the metrics without going over the actual number. You can give a prize to the most accurate guesser each round.

This activity gets employees involved and engaged in company performance and are a fun way to go over normally dry information.

12. Kahoot Trivia

Kahoot is a game-based learning platform that brings engagement and fun. Playing Kahoot is a fun company meeting idea for employee engagement. By entering answering on their mobile devices, participants can race to respond to quiz questions about work or non-work topics. Simply create the quiz pre-meeting, then have participants enter a code on their mobile devices to join the room. Be sure to display the questions large screen so that the group can play along in real time.

Questions such as team members’ birthdays, important dates in the office, or company history can be good game material for company meetings. Spellings of industry terms or employee names can also be in the Kahoot games. This exercise is a perfect blend of productivity and fun. Playing Kahoot is a good way to end the annual company meeting, as the game keeps attendees happy and relaxed at the end of the day.

Here are more quiz game apps and tools .

13. Question and Answer Sessions

Question and answer sessions are good opportunities for team members, especially new hires, to ask questions about the company. The session can address questions about team tasks, new company concepts, business strategies, or upcoming organizational changes, for instance.

To organize a Q and A session:

• Encourage all staff members to drop any questions they may have in a suggestion box or on a digital form.
• Screen through the questions and pick the most important inquiries or look out for frequently-asked questions.
• Have attendees sit facing the speakers. If allowing on-the-spot questions, then be sure to have a microphone ready for the audience.
• One by one, address employee questions. Feel free to use visual aids to illustrate points and list answer highlights.

The question and answer question will help employees align with the company’s goals and give the teammates clarity on the company’s expectations. This meeting also helps team members prepare better for the next business year. To make the most of this activity, take notes and email a conversation summary to the meeting participants after the fact.

14. Guest Speakers

Inviting a guest speaker is a great annual company meeting idea. The guest speaker could be a well-known businessman in the industry, a motivational speaker, or a TED talk professional. Whoever the company chooses should be an important figure who will give value through speech.

You can also encourage the speaker to use PowerPoint to share unimportant data and facts, as some employees may need audio-visual learning to completely understand what is being said. It is important to ensure that attendees get the slides at the end of the speech to aid them in their research and know the topics discussed at the meeting.

Here is a list of virtual keynote speakers .

15. Stars of the Year

Good work deserves applause, and when you recognize your team’s efforts, your teammates will give more exemplary work. It is important to recognize employees who had distinguished themselves in the business year. This recognition will encourage all members of staff to keep up the great work and also encourage other teammates to do better so they can receive recognition as well.

For example, you can project photos and profiles of the stars of the year on the screen during the meeting so that all attendees can get to see and appreciate their teammates for a job well done. Or, you can setup a makeshift “hall of fame” near the meeting space with photos and short profiles of standout team members. Another simple gesture is to place stars on the nametags of top performers and contributors to identify the star employees at the gathering.

Offering appropriate recognition makes the teammates realize that they are adding value to the company, and that the team’s efforts are not in vain.

For similar initiatives, check out employee of the month ideas .

16. Customer Roses and Thorns

Customer Roses and Thorns is one of the most helpful yearly meeting activities. This exercise shares customer success stories and pain points and challenges team members to think about what comprises an optimal customer experience.

For this activity, you can prepare positive and negative reviews. Be sure that critical reviews do not contain employee names, however, feel free to keep names in positive reviews to give team members well-deserved shout-outs. You can treat each review like a case study and have the group discuss what the employee did well and what they could have done better. This activity pinpoints the root causes of issues and helps employees set standards. Even when presented with positive reviews, employees can brainstorm ways to do even better.

Sometimes, it’s difficult to see the impact of the work that is being done or to spot the wrongs from an insider’s point of view. A customer’s success story or criticism is important, and sharing it at an annual meeting makes it much more useful to the growth of the company as a whole. The customer’s feedback can be projected in a large conference room for all the employees to see. At this meeting, the employees will need to offer suggestions to solve or deal with these complaints or feedback. They may also suggest long-lasting solutions to these problems, to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

17. Guess the Picture

One of the simplest ideas for yearly meetings is to create a slideshow of the year in review. Rather than present the pictures one by one, you can turn this activity into a fun game.

To play, show slides of photographs without any context. Then, have team members jot down the event the picture commemorates. Players have up to thirty seconds to guess and can converse with coworkers sitting nearby. At the end of the activity, go over the answers, elaborate on each event, and award correct guesses with candy.

To make the exercise more interactive, ask each department to submit a photo.

Guess the picture is a beautiful and emotional way to relive the year and share fun experiences as a team. This activity is often an amazing way to bring the annual meeting to a close. Looking through the slide show gives attendees an insight into all they have been able to achieve as a team for that business year. This exercise serves as a reassurance and a boost to their momentum to do more and do better. Reflecting on good times has an unexplainable effect and a great advantage to work attitude come next business year. This is a yearly company meeting activity idea.

Annual company meetings are a time to gather the entire organization, address key points, and make important announcements. This meeting aims to checkmate progress, vote on pending company issues, make new strategies or improve on existing operations.

Annual company meetings give employees a chance to meet with the main supervisors of a company, show their progress over a certain period, and discuss issues that may be affecting the business. These events allow employees to see how well they have done in the last year and discuss ways to improve in the coming year. Not to mention, these occasions are great opportunities for colleagues to connect, bond, and gain a wider sense of belonging.

Next, check out leadership conferences and HR conferences .

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FAQ: Annual company meeting ideas

Here are answers to common questions about annual company meeting ideas.

What are annual company meetings?

The annual company meeting is an organizational-wide gathering to focus on big-picture concepts. This meeting generally features all important delegates, the chief financial officer, and board members of a company, and may even include all employees. The purpose of these annual meetings is for all the company members to discuss pressing issues, such as financial budgets and company growth.

What are some good ideas for annual company meetings?

Some good ideas for annual company meetings include innovative sessions, speedy hackathons, and charades. These events aim to bring the entire members of staff or members of a company up to date with company issues, assess employees’ progress, and develop new strategies for the company.

How do you make yearly company meetings fun and engaging?

You can make yearly company meetings fun and engaging by introducing fun games and activities that will keep participants interested from beginning to end. Examples include Charades, Bingo, and Guess the Metric.

Author: Grace He

People & Culture Director at teambuilding.com. Grace is the Director of People & Culture at teambuilding.com. She studied Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, Information Science at East China Normal University and earned an MBA at Washington State University.

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People & Culture Director at teambuilding.com.

Grace is the Director of People & Culture at teambuilding.com. She studied Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, Information Science at East China Normal University and earned an MBA at Washington State University.

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Elevate team morale and boost productivity with these positive staff meeting ideas designed to engage and energize your team.

Even the best team leaders go through periods when their meetings just aren’t productive, and the whole team seems disengaged. If this sounds like you, rest easy—there are plenty of ways to bring engaging staff meetings back into your day-to-day. 

A big part of enhancing meeting engagement is simply going outside the box. Instead of building out your typical staff meeting agenda , try your hand at any of the positive staff meeting ideas detailed in this blog post.

Best practices for positive staff meetings

• 27 positive staff meeting ideas

Tips for maintaining meeting positivity 

Positive staff meeting ideas look very little like how you’d typically put together a team gathering. That said, the steps you’ll take beforehand are pretty similar. Here are some best practices for positive staff meetings to keep in mind.

Plan your meeting and set an agenda 

Great meetings have structure and context, and these qualities come from robust meeting agenda templates, customized meeting format s , and AI-generated talking points. You’ll check all these boxes when you use Fellow’s AI meeting agenda feature to create an agenda and send it ahead of your meeting. Plus, with Fellow’s meeting planning feature , you’ll get notified when it’s time to take key preparation steps such as adding agenda topics or sections.

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Set expectations

Everyone attending your meeting should show up knowing how you’d like them to take part and what you’re aiming to achieve by the meeting’s end. Lay this all out with a clear meeting purpose , and you’ll be well on your way to a highly positive meeting. 

Assign roles

Anyone on your team who plays a dedicated role during your meeting will inherently be engaged. Appoint someone as your meeting’s note-taker and another person as the timekeeper to ensure each agenda item gets only its allotted amount of time. You should also decide on a meeting facilitator whose role is to ensure an efficient, in-depth, and successful meeting. These team members’ active participation may encourage the same from others.

27 positive staff meeting ideas 

Newly productive team meetings start with these 27 positive staff meeting formats.

• Lunch and learn sessions
• “Two truths and a lie” game
• Professional development group
• Open mic storytelling
• Group fitness classes
• Team potluck
• Virtual reality (VR) experiences
• Book or podcast club
• Community service projects
• In-person or virtual happy hour
• International day
• Outdoor team-building activities
• Board game or video game tournaments
• Theme dress code meetings
• Constructive feedback sessions
• Personal storytelling exercises
• Create a team time capsule
• Role swap days
• Goal visualization boards
• Celebrate weekly achievements
• Silent meetings
• ‘Inside the Actors’ Studio’ interviews
• ‘Shark Tank’ innovation pitches
• TED-style talks
• Arts and crafts hour
• Musical chairs with a twist
• Mindfulness and meditation breaks

1 Lunch and learn sessions

In this series of staff meetings , your team members take turns leading informational sessions while everyone eats lunch. This novel approach to team meetings can be a much more exciting way to share key project updates.

2 “Two truths and a lie” game

Getting to know each other meetings are great spaces for everyone to share things about themselves. The twist with this creative meeting activity, though, is that team members share three things about themselves, but only two of these things are true.

3 Professional development group

Effective staff meetings look at each team member’s current role as well as their future involvement. Team members sharing and uplifting each other’s career goals in professional development meeting groups makes for positive, engaging environments.

4 Open mic storytelling

Sometimes your team needs to let off a little steam or get some sympathy from other team members about a recent work challenge. With an open mic storytelling meeting, anyone can take center stage with an in-depth work story and get the group’s reaction.

5 Group fitness classes

A healthy team is a productive team. Gathering everyone for virtual or in-person yoga, Pilates, or aerobics classes can get everyone’s bodies and minds flowing, thus improving meeting morale.

6 Team potluck

Instead of your next in-person staff meeting pulling everyone away from lunch, combine your meeting with a potluck. This way, everyone gets fed while bringing a dish that shows off their kitchen prowess or speaks to their cultural heritage.

7 Virtual reality (VR) experiences

Team building in meetings can boost morale in settings far beyond the conference room. Use virtual reality (VR) headsets for team-building experiences in just about any setting you can imagine.

8 Book or podcast club

Leadership media, such as the Supermanagers podcast , is highly popular among the executives of today and tomorrow. Host a book or podcast club during your staff meeting to get conversations going about the professional content everyone is consuming.

9 Community service projects

It can feel really nice to contribute to a community initiative or local charity. Gathering your whole team for this (or sponsoring remote team members’ individual community contributions) can increase morale while giving back to your neighbours.

10 In-person or virtual happy hour

After a long week, your team might appreciate light drinks and pub food at a bar near your workspace. Alternatively, for remote teams, set up an end-of-day virtual meeting where everyone brings their own refreshments and snacks.

11 International day

For an international day staff meeting, give everyone the chance to present their background and build a mini-cultural exchange. The more seen you make your team members feel, the higher their morale and, in turn, their productivity.

12 Outdoor team-building activities

For in-person teams, the challenges of hiking together or completing a group rope course can teach your team how to work together in unique settings. That’s exactly what you might try to achieve in a standard team meeting, but outdoor activities are way more fun.

13 Board game or video game tournaments

Winning at board games and video games often requires collaboration and strategic thinking. Carve out some meeting time, whether in person or virtually, for game tournaments to foster these skills in unexpected and exciting ways.

14 Theme dress code meetings

Lightening the mood is sometimes all it takes to get everyone engaged and lead to a productive meeting. A fun, professionally appropriate theme for everyone’s meeting attire can lift everyone’s spirits and result in a much more effective conversation.

15 Constructive feedback sessions

Encouragement can keep team members going, even when you’ve already told them they’re doing well. Building staff meetings around positive, structured feedback can get everyone paying attention and feeling motivated to continue doing great things. 

16 Personal storytelling exercises

When one person on your team shares that they’ve overcome a certain professional challenge, others in the same boat might pay attention. They’ll be more engaged during your meeting—and afterward, they’ll have ample inspiration to jump over their current hurdles.

17 Create a team time capsule

It can be lots of fun to see what your team remembers most fondly about your work. It can be just as endearing to see where everyone thinks you’ll all be professionally in months or years. Gather these ideas in a team time capsule at your next meeting , and open this capsule at a future meeting for a moment of celebration.

18 Role swap days

Start your day with a meeting in which each team member outlines their role and chooses someone else to do it for them that day. This conversation alone can be unforgettable, as can some of the adventures your role-swapped team members embark on for the next eight hours.

19 Goal visualization boards

It’s one thing to have goals; it’s another to draw them out and literally see them on a computer screen. Give everyone at your staff meeting time to craft goal visualization boards, and then ask your team members to provide encouraging feedback on everyone’s aspirations.

20 Celebrate weekly achievements

Meetings can get so focused on updates and action items that it’s easy to forget to celebrate your team’s wins on previous objectives. A meeting dedicated just to this celebration can be incredibly engaging and drive morale and productivity afterward.

21 Silent meetings

In silent meetings , everyone silently reads the same material and takes notes, and then the ideas get shared around the room. The reading alone can engage people, and the unusual format can get everyone’s attention too.

22 ‘Inside the Actors’ Studio’ interviews

For a true infotainment feature during your next staff meeting, pair up team members to conduct short interviews with each other. Your team will be thoroughly tuned in as they learn about everyone’s hidden talents or other interesting facts.

23 ‘Shark Tank’ innovation pitches

Designate some leaders and managers as sharks, and invite your team members to pitch the sharks on innovative workplace changes. You might find your next big improvement, and you’ll certainly involve everyone in your meeting.

24 TED-style talks

Every team member has their own passions related to your work. Put team members in the center of your in-person or virtual meeting and give them a few minutes to speak impactfully on their passions. The frequent speaker changes and unexpected subjects will keep your team focused and excited.

25 Arts and crafts hour

Provide supplies for everyone to tap into their more creative side during your next staff meeting. For a virtual staff meeting, have your organization foot the bill, with a firm limit, for each team member’s own miniature supply shopping spree. Your team can then take the imagination they harness during this unique meeting to their everyday tasks. 

26 Musical chairs with a twist

Encourage rapid-fire problem-solving with quick, thrilling challenges whenever someone loses at musical chairs. You’ll bring joy to your meeting and develop skills that are useful long afterward.

27 Mindfulness and meditation breaks

Try a 10-minute introductory mindfulness and meditation break at your next meeting. This can provide a reset button and help everyone focus on the upcoming conversation.

To keep the positivity going at your meetings:

• Give everyone the chance to speak or participate . It’s only fun if everyone is doing it. Make sure you allow everyone the opportunity to take part in your meeting’s unique activity, whether it’s a TED talk or a simple feedback session.
• Regularly ask for feedback . Seek anonymous meeting feedback for unflinching insights into what your team thinks of your positive staff meeting ideas. With Fellow’s Feedback feature , giving, getting, and tracking advice, input, and growth becomes part of your team’s day-to-day.
• Steer conversations toward solutions . As novel as positive staff meeting ideas can be, they’re not just about the fun. Keep your activities geared toward problem-solving to make the most of your meetings.

Give and get feedback as work happens

A healthy and strong culture starts with feedback. Fellow enables your team to share real-time feedback on meetings or gather anonymous feedback.

Parting advice

Meetings are great—they’re your most efficient way to gather your team for problem-solving, project planning, goal-setting, and so much more. As with anything great, though, they can get a tad dull if you keep doing them the same way over and over. Breathe some life into your gatherings with positive staff meeting ideas that put unique twists on your conversations. Don’t forget to use Fellow to prepare meeting agendas and get feedback on how your new meeting formats are working!

Hybrid Meetings: 10 Best Practices for Leaders 9 min read

How to Conduct a Meeting Audit in 7 Steps: A Guide for Leaders 6 min read

Meeting Minutes: Templates, Examples (and Automations) to Move Faster and Smarter 9 min read

See how leaders in 100+ countries are making meetings more productive and delightful.

Say goodbye to unproductive meetings. Fellow helps your team build great meeting habits through collaborative agendas, real-time notetaking, and time-saving templates.

End every meeting knowing who is doing what by when. Assign, organize, and prioritize all your meeting action items in one place.

Give and get feedback as work happens. Request and track real-time feedback on meetings, recent projects, and performance.

10+ Team Meeting Ideas and Team Meeting Topics to Boost Productivity and Cohesion

Transform your team meeting from a chore to an engine of productivity and engagement with these team meeting topics and ideas..

📥 Want to turn these insights into action? Download this FREE team building resource!

Annual Calendar for Team Building

Team meetings are crucial for maintaining alignment, boosting morale, and driving progress. In this blog post, we explore 10+ effective team meeting ideas and team meeting topics, from weekly check-ins to brainstorming sessions, that will keep your team engaged and productive.

Looking for a team building tool for your next team meeting? Consider TeamDynamics , the personality test for modern teams.

In this article:

Team meetings are the backbone of any successful organization. Whether you’re leading a small startup or managing a large corporate team, regular check-ins are essential to keep everyone aligned, motivated, and moving in the same direction. But let’s be honest—team meetings can often feel like a drag if they lack structure, purpose, or engaging content. That’s why it’s crucial to bring fresh, meaningful topics to the table that spark interest, foster collaboration, and drive progress.

In this blog post, we’ll explore a variety of team meeting ideas and topics that will not only keep your meetings productive but also make them something your team actually looks forward to. We’ll cover everything from weekly check-ins to brainstorming sessions, ensuring you have a diverse toolkit of topics to choose from. Plus, we’ll introduce how using tools like TeamDynamics can add even more value to your meetings by helping you understand your team’s behavior and communication styles.

Wondering how AI can help you with your weekly team meeting? Check out our guide for how to use ChatGPT to run your team meetings .

By the end of this post, you’ll have a solid list of ideas to keep your meetings dynamic and effective, ultimately leading to a more cohesive and high-performing team. Whether you’re searching for new topics to discuss in your next meeting or looking for ways to revitalize your team’s communication, this guide is for you.

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The Importance of Regular Team Meetings

Regular team meetings are more than just a scheduled obligation—they are a critical tool for maintaining alignment, fostering collaboration, and driving your team toward its goals. When done right, these meetings can serve as the heartbeat of your organization, keeping everyone informed, engaged, and working together smoothly. But what exactly makes regular team meetings so important?

Benefits of Regular Meetings

Holding regular team meetings has a number of key benefits for team productivity and cohesion. Here are the most important benefits of team meetings:

• Improved Communication: Regular team meetings ensure that everyone is on the same page. They provide a dedicated time for team members to share updates, clarify any misunderstandings, and discuss important developments. This open line of communication helps prevent issues from slipping through the cracks and ensures that everyone is working with the most up-to-date information.
• Enhanced Team Cohesion: Bringing your team together on a consistent basis helps to build stronger relationships. When team members understand each other’s roles, challenges, and successes, it fosters a sense of camaraderie and mutual support. Over time, this cohesion leads to a more unified team that can tackle challenges together more effectively.
• Increased Accountability: Regular check-ins naturally create a sense of accountability among team members. When everyone knows they’ll be asked to provide updates or report on their progress, they’re more likely to stay on track with their tasks and responsibilities. This accountability helps ensure that projects move forward as planned and deadlines are met.
• Quick Problem-Solving: Issues and roadblocks are inevitable in any project, but regular meetings provide a forum for addressing them quickly. When challenges are discussed openly, the team can brainstorm solutions together, leveraging collective knowledge and creativity to overcome obstacles.
• Alignment with Goals: Regular team meetings keep everyone focused on the big picture. By consistently reviewing progress toward goals and discussing upcoming priorities, meetings help align the team’s efforts with the organization’s overall objectives. This alignment is key to ensuring that everyone is pulling in the same direction.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

While regular meetings offer numerous benefits, they can also become counterproductive if not managed properly.

Here are some common pitfalls to watch out for:

• Lack of Preparation: A poorly prepared meeting is a waste of time. Ensure that each meeting has a clear agenda, and that all participants know what’s expected of them in advance. This keeps the discussion focused and productive.
• Unclear Objectives: Every meeting should have a specific purpose. Whether it’s solving a problem, making a decision, or simply sharing updates, the objective should be clear to all participants from the start. Meetings without clear objectives often drift off-topic and fail to produce actionable outcomes.
• Overloading the Agenda: It’s tempting to cover as much ground as possible in a meeting, but cramming too many topics into one session can lead to rushed discussions and superficial conclusions. Prioritize the most important items and save less urgent topics for another time.
• Monopolizing the Conversation: Effective meetings involve input from all team members, not just the loudest voices in the room. Encourage everyone to contribute by asking for opinions, inviting quieter members to speak, and ensuring that the discussion remains balanced and inclusive.
• Ignoring Team Dynamics: Every team is made up of individuals with different communication styles, work preferences, and personalities. Ignoring these dynamics can lead to misunderstandings and frustration. This is where tools like TeamDynamics come into play—by understanding and leveraging the unique strengths and preferences of your team members, you can run meetings that are more engaging, inclusive, and productive.

Incorporating these best practices into your regular team meetings will not only make them more effective but will also help to maintain a positive and productive team environment. As you plan your next meeting, consider how you can apply these insights to improve communication, cohesion, and accountability within your team.

Effective Team Meeting Ideas

Keeping your team meetings fresh and engaging requires more than just showing up with an agenda. To truly make the most of these gatherings, it’s essential to vary the format and focus of your meetings. This keeps your team members interested and ensures that different aspects of the team’s work and dynamics are addressed. Here are some effective team meeting ideas that you can start using today:

1. Weekly Check-ins

Weekly check-ins are a staple of team management. They provide a regular opportunity for team members to update each other on progress, discuss any roadblocks, and align on the next steps. These meetings are ideal for maintaining momentum on ongoing projects.

💡 Best Practices: Keep weekly check-ins short and to the point. Use a structured format, such as each team member sharing what they accomplished last week, what they plan to do this week, and any challenges they’re facing. Encourage everyone to come prepared with their updates, so the meeting stays efficient and focused.

TeamDynamics Tip: Use insights from TeamDynamics to better understand how each team member prefers to communicate during these check-ins. This can help you tailor the meeting format to suit your team’s unique style, making the check-ins more effective and engaging.

2. Brainstorming Sessions

Brainstorming sessions are perfect for generating new ideas or finding creative solutions to challenges. These meetings allow the team to think outside the box and explore a wide range of possibilities without the constraints of judgment or immediate decision-making.

💡 Best Practices: Create a relaxed and open environment where all ideas are welcome, no matter how unconventional. Use techniques like mind mapping or silent brainstorming to ensure everyone has a chance to contribute. Make it clear that the goal is quantity over quality at this stage—refining ideas comes later.

TeamDynamics Tip: Consider how your team’s decision-making preferences, as revealed by TeamDynamics, can influence the brainstorming process. Some team members may thrive in a more structured brainstorming session, while others might prefer a free-flowing, spontaneous approach. Tailoring the session to your team’s dynamics can lead to more productive and inclusive brainstorming.

3. Problem-Solving Meetings

Problem-solving meetings are designed to address specific issues or challenges that the team is facing. Whether it’s a project that’s falling behind schedule or a persistent obstacle that needs to be overcome, these meetings focus on finding actionable solutions.

💡 Best Practices: Use structured problem-solving techniques, such as the 5 Whys, Fishbone Diagram, or SWOT analysis, to guide the discussion. Encourage open dialogue and ensure that all relevant perspectives are considered. Once a solution is identified, assign clear action items and follow up on progress in subsequent meetings.

TeamDynamics Tip: Leverage the behavioral insights from TeamDynamics to understand how your team members approach problem-solving. Some may be analytical and data-driven, while others might rely on intuition and creativity. Understanding these differences can help you lead more effective problem-solving sessions that play to your team’s strengths.

4. Team Building Activities

Team building activities are crucial for strengthening relationships and fostering trust within the team. These meetings focus on activities that allow team members to connect on a more personal level, which can lead to better collaboration and a more positive team culture.

💡 Best Practices: Incorporate a mix of work-related and fun activities. For example, you could start with a quick icebreaker or team-building game, followed by a discussion about team values or goals. The key is to choose activities that encourage interaction and help team members get to know each other better.

TeamDynamics Tip: Use TeamDynamics to identify the different interaction styles within your team. This can help you choose team-building activities that resonate with everyone, making the experience more meaningful and enjoyable for the entire team.

5. Strategy and Goal-Setting Meetings

Strategy and goal-setting meetings are essential for aligning the team on long-term objectives. These meetings provide an opportunity to discuss the team’s vision, set clear goals, and create a plan for achieving them.

💡 Best Practices: Involve the entire team in the goal-setting process to ensure buy-in and commitment. Use SMART criteria (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) to define clear and actionable goals. Review progress toward these goals regularly in subsequent meetings to keep the team on track.

TeamDynamics Tip: Consider how your team’s decision-making and planning preferences, as identified by TeamDynamics, can influence the goal-setting process. By aligning your strategy sessions with these preferences, you can create more realistic and achievable goals that the entire team is motivated to pursue.

6. Learning and Development Sessions

Learning and development sessions focus on skill-building and knowledge-sharing within the team. These meetings are a great way to keep the team growing and evolving, both individually and collectively.

💡 Best Practices: Rotate the responsibility for leading these sessions so that different team members have the opportunity to share their expertise. Topics could range from technical skills and industry trends to soft skills like communication and leadership. Encourage an open dialogue where team members can ask questions and discuss how they can apply what they’ve learned to their work.

7. Retrospectives

Retrospectives are reflective meetings where the team looks back on recent projects or sprints to assess what went well and what could be improved. These meetings are vital for continuous improvement and learning from past experiences.

💡 Best Practices: Create a safe space where team members feel comfortable sharing honest feedback. Use a structured format, such as the Start-Stop-Continue model, to guide the discussion. Focus on identifying actionable insights that can be applied to future projects.

By incorporating these diverse meeting ideas into your regular team schedule, you can keep your meetings dynamic, focused, and effective. Each of these ideas serves a specific purpose, helping to address different aspects of team management, from communication and problem-solving to goal-setting and personal development.

Key Topics to Discuss in Team Meetings

Choosing the right team meeting topics to discuss in your team meetings is just as important as the meeting format. The right topics can inspire your team, drive progress, and solve problems before they escalate. Here are some interesting topics to discuss in team meetings that can keep your meetings relevant, productive, and aligned with your team’s goals:

1. Progress Updates

Progress updates are a staple of most team meetings. They provide a snapshot of where each project or task stands and ensure that everyone is aware of what’s been accomplished and what’s still in progress. This helps keep the entire team aligned and focused on the most critical tasks.

Why It’s Important: Regular progress updates help maintain momentum and accountability. They also provide an opportunity to celebrate small wins, which can boost morale and keep the team motivated.

TeamDynamics Tip: Understanding the communication styles within your team through TeamDynamics can make progress updates more effective. For example, some team members may prefer detailed, data-driven updates, while others might benefit from a more high-level overview. Tailoring your approach based on these preferences can ensure that everyone stays engaged and informed.

2. Team Morale and Engagement

Team morale and engagement are crucial for maintaining a productive and positive work environment. Use this time to check in on how team members are feeling, address any concerns, and discuss ways to boost morale. This could involve recognizing individual contributions, discussing workload balance, or brainstorming ways to improve team dynamics.

Why It’s Important: High morale and engagement are directly linked to better performance, lower turnover, and a more cohesive team. Addressing these areas regularly helps prevent burnout and keeps the team energized and committed.

3. Innovation and Improvement

Innovation and continuous improvement are vital for staying competitive and driving the team forward. Dedicate time in your meetings to discuss new ideas, potential improvements to processes, and ways to innovate within your projects or the organization as a whole. Encourage team members to think creatively and suggest out-of-the-box solutions.

Why It’s Important: Fostering a culture of innovation keeps your team ahead of the curve and helps prevent stagnation. Regularly discussing ways to improve ensures that your team is always looking for opportunities to grow and enhance their work.

4. Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is invaluable for improving products, services, and overall customer experience. Use your team meetings to share recent feedback, discuss any patterns or trends, and brainstorm how to address any issues raised by customers. This topic is particularly relevant for teams that are directly involved in customer interactions or product development.

Why It’s Important: Listening to customer feedback helps your team stay customer-focused and ensures that your offerings are meeting the needs and expectations of your audience. It also provides a direct line of communication between your team’s work and its impact on the customer.

5. Upcoming Challenges and Risks

Every project comes with its own set of challenges and risks. Use this time to discuss any upcoming obstacles that the team might face, whether they’re related to timelines, resource constraints, or external factors. Identifying these risks early allows the team to plan mitigation strategies and ensure that potential issues are addressed before they become major problems.

Why It’s Important: Proactively discussing challenges and risks helps prevent last-minute crises and ensures that the team is prepared to handle whatever comes their way. It also encourages a problem-solving mindset, where the team is always thinking ahead and planning for contingencies.

By regularly incorporating these topics into your team meetings, you can ensure that your discussions are always focused on what matters most to your team’s success. Each of these topics serves a different purpose, from tracking progress and boosting morale to driving innovation and managing risks.

Using TeamDynamics in Team Meetings

Incorporating TeamDynamics into your team meetings can take your discussions from good to great. By understanding your team’s behavioral dynamics, you can tailor your meetings to maximize engagement, productivity, and alignment with your team’s goals. TeamDynamics measures how your team communicates, processes information, makes decisions, and executes plans—key dimensions that influence how effective your meetings can be. Here’s how you can leverage TeamDynamics in your team meetings:

1. Understanding Team Behaviors

Every team has a unique way of working together. TeamDynamics provides a clear picture of your team’s existing behaviors across crucial dimensions like communication, decision-making, and execution. By understanding these behaviors, you can design meetings that play to your team’s strengths and address any potential challenges.

Application in Meetings: Let’s say your team tends to favor fast decision-making but struggles with thorough information processing. Knowing this, you could allocate more time during meetings to discuss data and insights before jumping into decisions. Alternatively, if your team excels at communication but needs more support in execution, your meetings could focus more on action planning and follow-up.

Why It’s Important: Aligning your meeting structure with your team’s natural behaviors ensures that discussions are more productive and that the outcomes are more actionable. When your team feels that meetings are tailored to how they work best, they are more likely to engage fully and contribute meaningfully.

2. Enhancing Communication

Effective communication is at the heart of every successful meeting. TeamDynamics helps you understand the communication styles within your team—whether some members prefer direct, concise updates or others thrive on detailed, in-depth discussions.

Application in Meetings: Use these insights to structure your meetings in a way that accommodates different communication preferences. For instance, you could start with high-level summaries for those who prefer brevity, followed by a more detailed discussion for those who need more context. This approach ensures that everyone gets the information they need in the way that best suits them.

Why It’s Important: When communication is aligned with individual preferences, it reduces misunderstandings and ensures that everyone is on the same page. This leads to smoother discussions and more effective collaboration, ultimately making your meetings more productive.

3. Facilitating Better Decision-Making

Decision-making is a critical component of most team meetings. TeamDynamics sheds light on how your team approaches decisions—whether they prefer quick, intuitive choices or a more analytical, data-driven process. Understanding these preferences can help you guide the decision-making process more effectively.

Application in Meetings: If your team tends to rush decisions, you might introduce structured decision-making frameworks like pros-and-cons lists or SWOT analysis to ensure all factors are considered. Conversely, if your team leans toward over-analyzing, setting clear time limits for discussions can help keep the meeting on track and prevent decision fatigue.

Why It’s Important: Tailoring the decision-making process to your team’s preferences ensures that decisions are not only made efficiently but are also well-informed and supported by the entire team. This leads to better outcomes and a greater sense of ownership over the decisions made.

4. Executing Plans and Follow-Through

Execution is where plans and strategies turn into action. TeamDynamics helps you understand how your team approaches execution—whether they are strong in planning and follow-up or if they need more support in turning ideas into reality.

Application in Meetings: Use your meetings to reinforce execution behaviors by setting clear, actionable next steps and assigning specific responsibilities. Regularly review progress on these action items in subsequent meetings to ensure accountability and continuous momentum.

Why It’s Important: Ensuring that your team follows through on meeting decisions is crucial for maintaining progress and achieving goals. By aligning your meetings with your team’s execution strengths and addressing any weaknesses, you can drive more consistent and reliable results.

5. Benchmarking and Evolving Team Behavior

One of the most powerful aspects of TeamDynamics is its ability to provide a benchmark for your team’s behavior. This benchmark allows you to track how your team evolves over time and identify areas for improvement.

Application in Meetings: Periodically review your team’s behavioral benchmarks in your meetings. Discuss how your team’s communication, decision-making, and execution styles have evolved and whether any adjustments are needed to improve performance. This ongoing reflection helps your team stay adaptive and continuously improve their working dynamics.

Why It’s Important: A team that regularly reflects on its behavior and adapts to new challenges is more likely to succeed in the long run. By using TeamDynamics to benchmark and evolve your team’s behavior, you ensure that your meetings remain relevant, effective, and aligned with your team’s goals.

By integrating TeamDynamics into your team meetings, you can create a more personalized, effective, and engaging meeting experience. Whether you’re focused on improving communication, decision-making, or execution, TeamDynamics provides the insights you need to tailor your meetings to your team’s unique strengths and challenges. This not only enhances the productivity of your meetings but also contributes to a more cohesive and high-performing team overall.

Effective team meetings are the foundation of a successful and cohesive team. By incorporating a variety of meeting ideas and topics—from progress updates and brainstorming sessions to discussions on innovation and customer feedback—you can keep your team engaged, aligned, and motivated. Regularly addressing these key areas ensures that your meetings are not only productive but also foster a positive team culture where everyone feels heard and valued.

But to truly maximize the impact of your meetings, it’s essential to understand the unique dynamics of your team . This is where TeamDynamics comes into play. By measuring your team’s behaviors across the most important dimensions— communicating information, turning information into insights, making decisions , and executing plans—TeamDynamics provides you with a clear benchmark of how your team operates. It also helps each individual on your team understand how their personal preferences relate to these team behaviors, enabling you to tailor your meetings to suit your team’s specific needs.

With this understanding, you can evolve your team’s behaviors in a way that aligns with your goals, whether that means reinforcing existing strengths or addressing areas for improvement. Integrating TeamDynamics into your regular team meetings can lead to more informed discussions, better decision-making, and stronger follow-through on action plans—all of which contribute to a more cohesive and high-performing team. Give TeamDynamics a try for free.

So, as you plan your next team meeting, consider how the insights from TeamDynamics can help you create a more effective and engaging experience for your team. By doing so, you’ll not only improve the quality of your meetings but also drive better outcomes for your entire organization.

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How to Create the Perfect Meeting Agenda

• Steven G. Rogelberg

It’s all about asking the right questions.

Agendas are an important first step for a successful meeting, but far too few leaders put enough thought into the ones they create. In fact, research has found that a large percentage of agendas are simply recycled meeting to meeting. So what can you do to create agendas that inspire, target the issues that need to be resolved, and leave attendees satisfied with the time spent in discussion together? Instead of listing agenda items as simple bullet points, reframe them as questions instead. This approach will make you more strategic, thinking critically about the meaning of a topic and what your ultimate outcome is. It will also make it easier to determine your invitation list (the people essential to answering the questions) and better informs when to actually end a meeting (when the questions have been answered to satisfaction). And if you can’t think of questions to ask, maybe you don’t need that meeting in the first place.

Read any book on running effective meetings and, chances are, one of the first recommendations is going to be to set an agenda. Managers are often led to believe that having a written plan is the key for an engaging and successful meeting. Sadly, it’s not that easy. Research has actually found little to no relationship between the presence of an agenda and attendees’ evaluation of meeting quality. What matters is not the agenda itself but the relevance and importance of what’s on it, and how the leader facilitates discussion of the agenda items.

• SR Steven G. Rogelberg is the Chancellor’s Professor at the University of North Carolina Charlotte for distinguished national, international, and interdisciplinary contributions. He is the author of Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1:1 Meetings (Oxford University Press, 2024) and The Surprising Science of Meetings: How You Can Lead Your Team to Peak Performance (OUP, 2019) and. He writes and speaks about leadership, teams, meetings, and engagement. Follow him on LinkedIn or find more information at stevenrogelberg.com .

Partner Center

How to Conduct a Business Plan Meeting or Strategy Meeting

Doing a business plan meeting will help you stay on track throughout the next 12 months. Follow this strategy meeting agenda to review your business plan goals, make tweaks to your business plan direction and update timelines and accountability so that you are farther along one year from now.

Quick note: you can download a free sample business plan for several different industries from MoreBusiness.com. Then, edit the business plan to create a custom one for your company.

Table of Contents

Business Plan Meeting

While many companies hold their meetings in January, the time of year doesn’t matter. If you haven’t updated your business plan in over a year, set up a time on your calendar to do it as soon as possible.

You can have your strategy meeting offsite, like a strategic planning retreat, or in your office. Offsite strategy meetings often include team building activities as well as strategic business topics.

We hold our meetings at our office over 5 days, 2 hours per day in the mornings. After each business planning session, we take the team out for lunch (or have it catered in). This allows us to break up the day and keep the creative juices flowing. It also allows our team to keep up with their normal activities in the afternoon so client issues are addressed.

Our goal is to dive deep while having fun. Here’s how we do it. Read our strategy meeting agenda below or watch this 6-minute video:

Strategy Meeting Agenda

Every business plan meeting is broken up into specific topics that we cover. We prepare a strategy meeting agenda for everyone to follow and take notes on.

We also make it a point to connect regularly throughout the year. Doing so helps us make sure we are on track to meet each milestone and enables us adjust the plan as necessary.

1. Create a List of Accomplishments and Shortcomings

It’s important to evaluate where you have been before you can figure out where you are going. You must know what worked and what didn’t. Take an honest look at your business and create a list of what you did well (accomplishments) and what didn’t go so well (shortcomings).

We go through accomplishments first and write a large list on our white board. We take a picture so nobody has to transcribe the list while we are shouting out answers.

Inevitably, during our discussion of shortcomings, we remember other accomplishments so we have a blank space on the white board to write those down.

Encourage your staff to speak without feeling shy about the answers. How comfortable they are in sharing their thoughts is a reflection of your company culture .

2. Review Company Values

Everyone at our company has a framed list of company values in their office. The list is simple, about 4 lines. It provides a lens from which we can ensure that new goals are in line with what is important to us.

This part of the strategy meeting agenda is usually fairly quick, but it is an important reminder that sets the stage for the next series of topics.

3. Answer These Strategic Planning Questions

This is the longest portion of your strategy meeting. Talk about SWOT – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Look at your competitors to see what they are doing better than you and how you could change to compete.

Ask questions like these and take notes without judging any comments:

• What are our biggest sources of revenue?
• What are our smallest sources of revenue?
• How much time does each revenue source take to service?
• If we stopped providing low revenue products and services, how would that impact the company? Would it free up time to focus on high revenue opportunities?
• What is our competition doing that we aren’t? If we offered something similar, how would that affect our revenue and expenses? Would it change our focus?
• What new lines of products or services should we consider adding?
• Have our customers been requesting something that we aren’t providing?
• What changes are occurring in our industry that could affect us?
• Are there any new or pending laws that will impact sales or customers? Should we lobby our legislators to change these laws?
• What are our financial goals for the next 12 months? 24 months?
• How will we get there?

Your mission at this step in the strategic planning process is to come up with key goals that make sense – and that you can measure (more on that next).

Remember to look at each item with your company values in mind. If a new product idea doesn’t line up with your values, it will not be a good fit for your business.

Next, take the time to create a list of all of these ideas and tasks.

4. Rank Each Task by Difficulty, Value and Priority

Once you have a detailed list of ideas for the next 12 months, you need to prioritize them. Every company has limited resources. If you focus on irrelevant activities, you will limit your growth. Setting priorities is an essential part of your strategy meeting agenda.

Next to your newly created list of goals, add three columns: difficulty, value, and priority. You will assign a number from 1-10 for difficulty and value and 1-3 for priority.

Difficulty : start by ranking each goal or idea in terms of difficulty to accomplish, 10 being the hardest. The difficulty should be higher for tasks that require longer time commitments to complete.

Value : rank each task by the value it brings to the company as a whole, not to an individual employee. Use 10 as your marker for having the most value. For example, if adding a new product line would create a significant revenue stream, that task would have a high rank. Look at each task as “nice to have” vs. “must have” to sort out what will provide the most value.

Priority : once you have ranked each task’s difficulty and value, you can set a priority. Tasks that have low difficult and high value should get a high priority since they are the easiest to do and will provide you with quick benefits. Give those a priority of 1. Tasks with high difficulty and low value should be marked with a priority of “Not Yet” to indicate they are not the best bang for your buck at this time.

This process enables you to determine which tasks should bubble to the top of your action item list.

5. Set Milestones and Assign Accountability

Create a spreadsheet for each quarter that lists each task and who is responsible for working on it. Add deadlines and milestones so you can tell if you are on track.

Monthly Meeting

Don’t invest all the time to hold a strategy meeting and then let your action items sit on a shelf collecting dust.

Schedule a monthly meeting to review your strategic planning goals. This means you will have just 3 meetings per quarter. Use these high level meetings to make course corrections and adjustments to your plan.

You should also meet weekly to go over specific tasks that dive into the details of each high level goal. These weekly meetings supplement that strategic topics covered in each monthly meeting.

Download MoreBusiness.com’s agenda for a  one-on-one meeting  (it’s free) to plan and track meetings with each team member.

Over time, you may find that some of the goals from your strategy meeting are no longer appropriate. Be flexible enough to recognize that you may need to make changes before your next business plan meeting.

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More From Forbes

Three exercises for your annual team planning day.

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Vice President of Advisor Development at  Advisors Excel.  I help good independent Financial Advisors become great CEOs with the proven way. 

One of my favorite annual business traditions is our team strategic planning day. It’s a day when we reflect on the past year and look forward to the new year, visualizing what we want to accomplish in the next 12 months.

I recommend getting out of your physical office space for your team planning day and changing your scenery. This will help get the creative juices flowing for the dreams, goals and action items you are about to discuss.

There are plenty of things to accomplish during this day and lots of team building and business ideas to choose from. Here are three of our team’s most effective exercises, so you can use them in your planning meeting as we all close the door (happily) on 2020 and visualize 2021.

Exercise One: The One-Page Strategy And Plan

This is exactly what it sounds like. You’ll narrow down all your strategy and plans for your business onto one page. When it comes to goals and plans, it’s best to keep things simple and precise. This one-page strategy and plan is laid out specifically to maximize efficiency and clear up any confusion.

On one side of the page, recap your key accomplishments and any gaps from the previous year. Include not only your big wins but also what I call your “fall shorts.” These are the areas where you came up short and need to find a solution in the new year. Completing this side of the page gives you a clear runway on what your strategy needs to be moving forward.

On the other side of the page, list your goals and the key strategies to help you achieve them. Organize these based on the important categories of your business. Some examples could include marketing, sales, client retention/value, profitability, team development and culture.

Exercise Two: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) Analysis

If you’ve been through any business school or read any business book, then you’re likely familiar with this age-old strategy: evaluating your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Just like anything: If it isn't broke, don’t fix it. This exercise is critical to employ every year, but this year try it with a little spin: complete your SWOT analysis as a team.

Instead of sitting in a coffee shop by yourself dreaming up your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, do so as a team. It’s incredible what different answers you’ll come up with as a team that you wouldn’t think of on your own. This also gives your team the ability to share the day-to-day threats in their roles that you as the owner will almost never see.

One big rule for this exercise: Let the team come up with their answers on their own. Do not lead their answers. Add yours at the end, but do not interject your thoughts before theirs because this will limit the sharing within the group.

After completing this exercise, your team will be more committed to tackling the weaknesses and taking advantage of the new opportunities. This will also give team members more ownership in their roles to help the entire team grow.

Exercise Three: Most Important Number Calculation

One of the top business owners in the finance industry once said, “Almost every problem in your business can be solved by more first appointments.” For our industry, he couldn’t be more right. If your industry doesn’t rely on first appointments but instead on new leads or new prospects who walk through your door, fill in your own blank there.

If you focused your time and efforts on more leads, more appointments or more new clients, most of your problems would be solved. The number of first appointments then becomes the most important number to track in your business. To find out what number you’ll need to achieve in order to meet your goals, you need to do some reverse engineering, starting with your goal for the year.

It’s easiest if you start with your total revenue goal for your business. You can use other numbers, but this tends to be the simplest. Divide your revenue goal by the average revenue you generate from each new client. That result is the number of new clients you need to hit your goal.

Now, take the number of new clients you need and multiply it by the average number of first appointments it takes to close one new client. This answer will be the most important number for your business.

With these three exercises, you’ll have an incredible start to your next team strategic planning day. You’ll generate more team participation and a positive culture, and everyone will leave the meeting with a clear picture of where the team is headed and their specific role in accomplishing the goals of the business.

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How to write an effective team meeting agenda (with templates!)

Because if there’s no agenda, there shouldn’t be a meeting in the first place.

Managing Editor, Products & News

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5-second summary

• Team meeting agendas help you prioritize important topics and keep things running smoothly and efficiently, so your team walks away from the meeting feeling motivated and aligned.
• All agendas are not created equal; read our tips to learn what to include on every agenda, and how to tailor your agenda depending on the goals of your meeting.
• Templates are a helpful jumping-off point, and can be tailored to meet the needs of your particular meeting.

Imagine you’re knee-deep in work, laser-focused, and ready to tackle the next task on your lengthy list. Nothing can stand in your way…except for the meeting you have in 10 minutes. Now imagine that you come out of that meeting inspired and motivated – exhilarated, even. And despite that dreaded context-switching , you’re able to pick up right where you left off with even more gas in the tank. This is how productive and effective meetings should make you feel. But how do you get there?

Your secret weapon might just be a team meeting agenda. Too often relegated to an afterthought, this handy tool can go a long way to help you run more effective in-person or virtual meetings. It helps with managing time, setting expectations, and staying on the task at hand. Agendas ensure that you have a clear purpose and that you can achieve the goals you set, whether you’re plotting your quarterly budget or creating a project timeline – real, shareable results. Team meeting agendas also help you prioritize the things you want to talk about, so you can guide your team through the most important topics of the week.

Leading productive, fruitful meetings doesn’t always come naturally – and that’s okay. Follow these helpful tips for creating an effective team meeting agenda, including a few free templates to get you started and a video with tips on how Atlassian approaches meeting agendas, taken from Atlassian University’s course How to Run Effective Meetings .

What is a team meeting agenda?

A team meeting agenda is an organized and scheduled list of topics and action items that you plan to discuss with your team during a meeting. It’s there to help you prioritize the most important topics and keep things running smoothly and efficiently so your team walks away from the meeting feeling motivated and aligned. But it’s not enough to jot down a simple list of topics and put a time stamp next to each one; it actually takes a fair amount of thought and effort to organize an effective team meeting agenda.

5 tips for creating an effective team meeting agenda

How to run effective meetings in the era of hybrid work

The most effective team meeting agendas are well-planned, clear, and concise. Here, it really helps to take a step back and put yourself in your team’s shoes. Be sure to consider your audience and what they already know; the purpose of your meeting (are you trying to solve a problem, brainstorm ideas, or make a decision; and how you can make your meeting as engaging and memorable as possible?

After skimming the agenda items, all team members should understand the purpose of the meeting and their roles within it, as well as anything they need to prepare for like questions about a certain project or deadline. This kind of preparation eliminates distractions and keeps the momentum going, leading to a more productive meeting. Here are five ways to create an effective team meeting agenda.

• Tailor your agenda to each meeting. Not all meetings are created equal, and not all agendas should be either. Maybe your weekly team meeting agenda needs a space for wins and shoutouts, but your workshop meeting agenda doesn’t. Because there are many types of meetings, do your best to format your agenda in a way that’s appropriate for your meeting and your team.
• Prioritize your agenda items. They’re the meat of your entire meeting – the reason(s) you’ve decided it was worthwhile to pull everyone away from their work and discuss each topic. That’s why it’s absolutely necessary to prioritize each item from highest priority to lowest priority, with the understanding that you’ll push the lowest-priority items to the next meeting if you run out of time.
• Include an icebreaker or other team-building activity . Icebreakers set a more casual tone (if that’s what you’re going for), and serve as a way to engage each person on the team. But keep in mind the size of your team and the length of your meeting. A complex icebreaker with 20 participants could take up your whole meeting.
• Hold enough time for questions and discussion. A well-planned meeting holds more than a measly 60 seconds for questions at the end. Reserve enough time to discuss the items on your agenda and encourage participation. Instead of asking, “Do you have any questions?” Try rephrasing it as “What questions do you have?” It’s a lot easier to shake your head “no” and get on with your day rather than thinking about questions for the agenda items. This could also spark healthy debate and spars.
• End on a positive note. Saving a few minutes to give team members some kudos will leave them feeling valued and motivated – when’s the last time you got an appreciative shoutout and did less work afterward? Whether it’s calling out people individually or thanking everyone as a group, your team will see that their hard work doesn’t go unnoticed.

On a more granular level, here are some characteristics at the core of most or all team meeting agendas.

What should all team meeting agendas include?

Every team meeting agenda should include the following basic elements to keep everyone in the loop:

• Date, time, and location: These details are especially important for dispersed teams. Be mindful of where everyone is and specify which time zone you’re in. As for the location, these days it might be a Zoom link or another chat channel instead of a physical location, so don’t forget to include that as well.
• Objective and goals: Use this as your North Star. Ask yourself, “What type of meeting is this? What am I trying to get out of it?” Be straightforward with everyone else about it so everyone’s on the same page and stays focused on the task at hand.
• Facilitator and attendees: You don’t necessarily have to take attendance, but keeping track of who’s running the show can orient team members about who to notify in case they can’t make it to the meeting or if they have something to add to the agenda.
• Agenda items: The purpose of agenda items is to make it crystal clear to the team what topics you’ll be discussing, what you want to accomplish within that item, and any action that needs to be taken. Keep it brief and avoid using jargon so everyone has a crystal-clear understanding of what’s to come.
• Time for each topic: Indicating an estimated time for each agenda item is crucial to keeping your meeting on track and on pace.
• Team check-in: Whether or not you do an icebreaker, find time to check in with your team members and their well-being. It’s important to show compassion and make sure they know you also care about factors that might be affecting them outside of work. Check-ins also ease your team into the meeting before diving right into business.

It’s also worth noting that agendas need to be circulated to all participants at least a day before the meeting. Doing so ensures that your team has had a chance to review what projects and assignments will be covered so that they come prepared for discussion. You might also welcome some feedback from your team in case you missed a thing or two.

Atlassian’s approach to team meeting agendas

Curious about how we approach meeting agendas at Atlassian? Check out this clip from Mark Cruth, Atlassian’s resident Modern Work expert and evangelist. Focused on practice over theory, Mark spends his days coaching both Atlassian and customer teams on new ways of working.

For more practical tips, enroll in the How to Run Effective Meetings course from Atlassian University – it’s completely free.

Team meeting agenda templates to get you started

6 types of meetings that are worth your time (and 3 that aren’t)

You might be wondering whether it’s worth your time to create an agenda. Although it can be a lot of work upfront, the amount of time you put into making a clear agenda can be compensated for by the efficiency of your now-wildly-productive meeting.

There are tons of free templates to choose from online – don’t hesitate to tailor them to your meeting’s particular needs. To start, check out our top team meeting agenda Confluence templates (downloadable with a free account) and explore how you can make each one your own.

• All hands meeting agenda template
• Remote team meeting agenda template
• Workshop meeting agenda template
• Brainstorming meeting agenda template
• Problem-solving meeting agenda template

Advice, stories, and expertise about work life today.

25 Unique Conference Themes to Make Your Next Event a Hit

Ever felt that sense of déjà vu as you scroll through conference themes, each one seeming just a slight variation of another? You’re not alone. 

It’s a common pitfall, and it can make events blend into one another in the minds of potential attendees.

But your conference doesn’t have to be a drop in the ocean. A well-chosen theme doesn’t just differentiate your event ; it creates a space where curiosity thrives, perspectives change, and new ideas blossom.

At Eventbrite, we help event creators put on thousands of conferences every year, so we understand that carving out a unique identity for your conference is no small feat. That’s why we’ve put together this list of innovative conference themes to inspire you. 

Ready to break the mold and offer your attendees something truly special? Delve into these 25 fresh conference themes to make your event truly unique. 

Table of Contents

Technology and trends conference themes

Leadership conference themes: putting employees first

Team-building conference themes, conference themes about driving revenue, why are conference themes important.

All too often, conference organizers play it safe with branding. To protect themselves, they use conference titles that are bland, trite, or that don’t fit. But branding is how you can differentiate your conference from all the other business events out there.

Once you figure out what you want people to know you for or associate your brand with, you can work on choosing a creative theme. Use your brand values for inspiration, but don’t be afraid to think outside the box and take your brand a step further for your conference theme. Why not make yours more interactive or offer more opportunities for small-group networking?

25 conference theme ideas that will drive attendance

Developing conference theme ideas isn’t easy; sometimes, getting started is challenging. Save yourself the headache and start by exploring these innovative conference themes . One or more of these might unleash your creativity, whether it be leadership conference themes, team-building conference themes, or something else.

Technology and trends-driven conference themes

The fast-paced world of technology is constantly progressing, offering many opportunities for innovative conference themes. Here, we present a selection of tech and trend-based themes that could be the perfect fit for your next event.

1. Flexible planning for success

This theme emphasizes the importance of adaptability and agility in business planning . Implementing this theme in your conference could involve:

• Inviting speakers who are experts in agile methodologies: These experts can share their experience to help businesses pivot more effectively.
• Hosting workshops on scenario planning: Help attendees understand how to plan for all possible contingencies.
• Networking sessions focused on sharing challenges and solutions: These sessions can give attendees the opportunity to learn from each other’s flexible business strategies.

2. Welcoming future trends

This theme focuses on the importance of understanding and embracing emerging trends in an industry. Event creator Tradebase is a great example — they took their virtual conference on construction trends to the next level by:

• Including a keynote speech by an industry leader: This should be a person knowledgeable in current and future industry trends who can provide trusted guidance to your attendees.
• Having breakout groups on specific trends: These discussions can give attendees a deeper understanding of the changes that will affect them more specifically.
• Inviting booths from forward-thinking vendors: Invite innovative businesses that will be guiding your industry’s future to show off their prototypes and concepts so attendees can get their hands on them. 

3. Digital technologies are the future

This theme highlights the importance of technologies like AI, 5G, and online commerce in today’s business world. For instance, The AI Conference showcased this at The AI Conference 2023 by:

• Inviting diverse speakers: You can include a mix of AI experts, from CTOs to research scientists.
• Offering multi-track sessions: You can have a wide range of sessions for diverse interests.
• Including plenty of demos: Providing hands-on tech demonstrations to ground the discussions in practical applications of this exciting technology.

4. Onscreen and in-person: tips for working with hybrid audiences

This conference would discuss the best practices around managing hybrid audiences in today’s professional world. In an era where remote work and virtual meetings have become the norm, here are a few ways to bring new insights to your audience: 

• Practice what you preach: Make it hybrid or virtual, and show others how to do it right!
• Include virtual “booth” demonstrations: Bring in virtual booths so vendors can show off their technologies.
• Offer networking breakouts: Create industry-specific breakout sessions so attendees can network with others facing similar challenges.

5. Stay ahead: leveraging tools in the tech era

This theme stresses the importance of mastering the latest tools and techniques to stay competitive in the fast-paced digital world. Here are a few ideas on how to bring this theme to life:

• Tutorial workshops: Invite industry experts to lead hands-on workshops, giving attendees a chance to learn new skills in real time.
• Panel discussions: Organize panel discussions where industry professionals discuss the latest trends and share best practices in social media, automated marketing, and cybersecurity.
• Case study presentations: Share success stories and lessons learned from companies that have effectively utilized these tools to achieve growth and security.

6. Unlocking the blockchain

Here, you’ll want to underscore the significance of blockchain technology and its transformative potential in various industries, beyond just cryptocurrencies. You can do this with a few tools:

• Industry sessions: Invite industry leaders and innovators in blockchain technology to share how it affects a variety of industries.
• Educational workshops: Conduct sessions introducing attendees to the basics of the blockchain and its applications.
• Hands-on demonstrations: Showcase real-world examples of blockchain implementation in different sectors, providing attendees with a tangible understanding of the technology.

Leadership themes can revolve around the central idea of enhancing employee engagement, improving workplace culture, and promoting professional growth. These event themes aim to create a more inclusive, nurturing, and productive work environment. 

7. Prioritizing mental health

Underscore the importance of mental health in the workplace and encourage mindfulness as a way of managing stress. To bring this theme to life, consider doing what Sandusky County Public Health did:

• Bring the right experts: Invite a mix of mental health experts and HR professionals with experience implementing innovative policies in the workplace.
• Include mindfulness workshops: Offer hands-on workshops where attendees can learn mindfulness techniques such as meditation, deep breathing, or yoga.
• Offer decompression spaces: Provide places where people can take a breath away from the action and practice prioritizing their own mental health.

8. Becoming and creating stars

This theme focuses on the power of storytelling in personal and professional development. Here’s how to make it come alive at your conference:

• Coaching sessions: Bring experienced coaches to teach classes on how your guests can unlock their potential as storytellers.
• Storytelling practice: Invite attendees to practice becoming stars themselves and put the skills they’ve learned into practice.
• Video production: For people who take the theme to heart, offer them the opportunity to produce their own video telling their story.

9. Highlighting women’s accomplishments

To make a conference highlighting women’s accomplishments, use Ladies Get Paid as an example. Here are a few lessons you can take from their success:

• Engage your audience: Speak directly to your audience’s questions, and use platforms like Zoom to scale that engagement.
• Make it accessible: Allow people to join your audience virtually and make it accessible to as many as possible.
• Give practical advice: Don’t just highlight what some women have done; give practical tips on how others can follow in their footsteps.

Bring your conference to more people than ever!

10. Managing time

This conference theme emphasizes mastering productivity and achieving work-life balance. With the average workday recently reported to have shrunk by 37 minutes , this theme has never been more relevant. Bring it to life with:

• Interactive workshops: Organize sessions to practice using time management tools, from digital apps to traditional methods like the Pomodoro Technique .
• Real-life case studies: Share stories of individuals or companies that transformed their productivity and efficiency through effective time management.
• A focus on metrics: Show the long-term benefits of making small changes now.

11. Embracing change

This theme encourages attendees to navigate the ever-changing landscape of industry innovations with agility and foresight. To implement it, consider the following:

• Include current events: Regularly engage attendees with industry news and updates.
• Talk about failure: Give examples of what happens when people don’t embrace change and what the consequences of that can be.
• Provide continuous learning: Create workshops and seminars on emerging trends.

12. Celebrating resilience

This theme inspires attendees to recognize and honor the strength and adaptability that comes with overcoming challenges. Consider taking it to the next level like INSEAD SF Hub Business Innovation did by:

• Highlighting overcomers: Share stories of individuals or organizations that have faced adversity and emerged stronger.
• Discussing setbacks: Delve into examples of challenges faced, the lessons learned, and the strategies employed to bounce back.
• Providing collaborative learning: Facilitate group discussions where attendees can share their personal stories of resilience and draw inspiration from each other.

13. Getting in front of risks

Emphasize the importance of proactive risk management in today’s unpredictable environment with this theme. To make it especially helpful, make sure to incorporate a few of these elements:

• Risk analysis: Introduce methodologies to identify and assess potential threats in various sectors. 
• Up-to-date risk reports: Give attendees up-to-date information on the current risks they may be facing and how to overcome them.
• Show the value: Give case studies of situations where risk management paid off.

14. Leading through adversity

In a world where change is the only constant, how one navigates through challenges defines true leadership. This theme emphasizes the essence of leadership in the face of adversity. To bring this theme to life, include:

• Leadership panels: Host discussions with seasoned leaders who’ve faced and overcome significant obstacles, allowing them to share their wisdom.
• Scenario simulations: Engage attendees in real-time crisis simulations to hone their decision-making skills in high-pressure situations.
• Peer-to-peer learning: Facilitate breakout sessions where attendees can exchange stories of adversity and the leadership lessons they’ve gleaned.

15. Thriving through downturns

Economic downturns and industry slumps are inevitable, but they don’t have to spell disaster. This theme emphasizes the strategies and mindsets that can turn challenges into opportunities. To effectively explore this theme, implement:

• Historical case studies: Analyze businesses that not only survived but thrived during past recessions, highlighting their innovative strategies.
• Financial workshops: Offer sessions on budgeting, cost-cutting without compromising quality, and other financial resilience tactics.
• Adaptive business models: Discuss pivoting strategies and how to restructure business models to meet changing demands.

Related Posts

• Creative Event Themes
• Fun Event Ideas
• Creative Event Sponsorship Ideas
• Key Ideas for Event Promotion

Team-building conference themes focus on fostering unity, collaboration, and a sense of community within teams. This section will delve into a variety of themes designed to break the ice, enhance team synergy, and create a more harmonious and productive work environment.

16. Improving workplace culture

A positive workplace culture is the backbone of any successful organization. This theme delves into the strategies and practices that foster a supportive, inclusive, and productive environment. Here are a few key features you can include in this conference:

• Diversity and inclusion workshops: Highlight the importance of varied perspectives and how to create an inclusive environment for all employees.
• Effective communication seminars: Discuss techniques for open dialogue, feedback, and conflict resolution.
• Team building activities: Offer interactive sessions that promote collaboration, trust, and camaraderie among team members.

17. Inclusion and diversity in the workplace

This is a more specific side of improving workplace culture. Beyond just diversity and inclusion workshops, here are a few ways you can incorporate this theme into your conference:

• Personal testimonies: Invite individuals to share their experiences, highlighting the value of diverse perspectives and the challenges faced in non-inclusive environments.
• Bias training workshops: Educate attendees on unconscious biases and provide strategies to combat them in decision-making processes.
• Diverse hiring practices: Share successful strategies and tools for attracting and retaining a diverse workforce.

You can take further inspiration from great examples like Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Safety Partners ’ diversity, equity, and inclusion conference. By including all of the above components and highlighting under-discussed topics like intergenerational and age diversity, they went above and beyond to explore this theme.

18. Firing up your team

Igniting passion and motivation within a team is crucial for achieving outstanding results. This theme focuses on energizing teams, promoting a spirit of collaboration, and driving peak performance. Here are a few ways you can make those ideals a reality at your conference:

• Motivational speakers: Invite renowned speakers who can share inspiring stories and techniques to boost morale and motivation.
• Team-building activities: Organize exercises that promote trust, collaboration, and camaraderie among team members.
• Performance rewards: Discuss the impact of recognizing and rewarding outstanding team contributions.

19. Changing from “I” to “We”

Transitioning from individual-centric thinking to a collective mindset is pivotal for collaboration and unity in any organization. This theme emphasizes the power of teamwork and shared goals. To effectively convey this message, use:

• Collaborative workshops: Organize activities that require collective problem-solving, highlighting the advantages of teamwork.
• Communication seminars: Offer training on effective communication, ensuring everyone feels heard and valued.
• Role reversal exercises: Encourage members to step into each other’s shoes, fostering empathy and understanding.

20. Keeping team energy flowing

Maintaining a high level of energy and enthusiasm within a team is crucial for productivity, creativity, and overall morale. This theme focuses on strategies to invigorate and sustain team momentum. Bring this theme to life by including:

• Energizing activities: Introduce short, fun breaks during conference sessions to rejuvenate the attendees and show them how to do the same in their workplace.
• Feedback loops: Discuss how to establish regular check-ins to understand team sentiments and address any concerns promptly.
• Skill-building workshops: Show attendees the value of offering training sessions that not only enhance skills but also boost confidence and enthusiasm.

Revenue growth is a primary goal for every business, and a conference can serve as a powerful tool for achieving this objective. This section will explore themes that focus on driving revenue and enhancing business profitability. 

21. Why businesses need to be customer centric

This theme focuses on how to put the customer first in all aspects of running a business. Here are a few key elements they emphasized at ElevateCX that you could include in your own conference:

• Customer profiling: Learn techniques for understanding customer needs and preferences better.
• Relationship building: Investigate strategies for strengthening relationships with customers.
• Personalization: Explore how to tailor products and services to meet customer demands.

22. New frontiers of marketing innovation

Here, attendees will learn how to use the latest digital marketing techniques to stand out from their competitors and drive success. You can bring this theme to life with:

• Automation tutorials: Explain the basics of automating marketing processes for efficiency and improved scalability.
• Email & text campaigns: Teach best practices for using emails, texts, and other communications tools for connecting with customers.
• Video marketing: Show attendees how to create engaging videos that capture attention and drive conversions. 

23. Navigating a global future

Attendees of this conference will learn how to navigate the rapidly changing global economy. Here’s what you can do to bring this to the forefront:

• Global market analysis: Explore current economic trends and their implications for businesses around the world.
• International trade: Discuss strategies for taking advantage of foreign markets and emerging industries.
• Financial planning: Introduce techniques for managing currency risks and exploring new investment opportunities.

24. Expanding horizons: finding new and existing customers

This conference theme focuses on how to drive sales without relying on traditional cold-calling techniques. Here are a few features you can add:

• Content marketing: Show attendees the power of content marketing for driving sales and engagement.
• Networking for lead gen: Demonstrate how to leverage networking opportunities to form relationships with potential customers.
• Customer segmentation: Teach ways to identify target customer segments and tailor messaging for maximum impact.

25. Optimizing leads: turning prospects into profits

This last conference theme emphasizes the strategies and mindsets for effectively generating demand and driving conversions. Here are a few key elements to include:

• Lead management: Teach attendees the best practices for tracking, nurturing, and converting leads into sales.
• Social media marketing: Demonstrate how to leverage various social media channels for maximum reach.
• A/B testing: Introduce techniques for improving website design and user experience through A/B testing. 

Make the most of your conference theme

So, feeling inspired yet? We hope so. Picking the right theme isn’t just about looking cool — it’s your golden ticket to hosting an event that sticks with people. It’s about creating that warm, buzzing atmosphere where great ideas are born and shared.

Your next step? Easy. 

Grab a theme from our list that resonates with your brand and start building the buzz. Share a sneak peek with your audience and get them as excited as you are. Trust us, a well-chosen theme can be a game-changer.

Need a hand organizing and promoting your conference?

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about the author

Stephanie Larson

Stephanie Larson has over seven years of writing and editing experience for top-name brands such as JetBlue, Lowe’s and US News and World Report. She also coaches authors on launching and marketing their books for greater reach. She’s worked as an events coordinator, wedding planner, and events director for workshops as cozy as 25 to national events with 3000 registered attendees. She enjoys crafts, the outdoors, movies, theater, and reading.

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19 Engaging Conference Themes for 2024

In-person, hybrid, or  virtual conferences  are more than just fancy corporate meetings; they are platforms for knowledge sharing, networking, and business growth. According to HubSpot's 2024 State of Marketing Report , 16% of marketers plan to explore experiential marketing for the first time in 2024, making unique events even more crucial. 

This data underscores the importance of conferences and the need to get them right. One key element of successful  conference management  is the theme. The theme sets the tone for the event, guides the selection of speakers and topics, and creates a memorable experience for everyone involved. And in this blog, we've curated a list of 19 conference themes you can try in 2024.

19 Engaging Conference Themes 

Here are 19 conference theme ideas that are sure to captivate your audience and leave a lasting impression in 2024:

Motivational/Inspirational Themes

1.  A Whole New World:  This theme focuses on mastering technological trends shaping the future of business. It's about understanding and integrating these technologies into existing business models to drive innovation. 

The conference should include interactive workshops where attendees can learn how to apply these technologies in their businesses through hands-on activities like building AI models or exploring blockchain solutions. You can also include case studies of companies like Tesla and Google to explain how they have been at the forefront of tech innovation. 

2.  Anything is Possible:  At the heart of this theme lies a powerful message—you are capable of more than you know. This theme is designed to push attendees to challenge the boundaries of their beliefs and envision what could be if only they dared to dream big. Through engaging talks and interactive workshops, it delves into the latest psychological research on growth mindsets and intrinsic motivation. 

Bring in experts and ask them to share transformative strategies that have helped top performers shatter glass ceilings. This will also provide participants with tools that can help them map out their paths to success, whether they're looking to climb the career ladder or turn a side hustle into a thriving business.

3.  Don't Stop Believing:  This theme serves as a rallying cry for anyone who's faced setbacks and fought the urge to give up. It aims to equip participants with mental and emotional strategies and tools to persist, persevere, and thrive in the face of adversity, ensuring they leave motivated and equipped to meet their challenges head-on. 

Provide the latest findings on resilience from cognitive psychology and behavioral science to explain what keeps some people pushing forward when others feel like throwing in the towel. Request speakers who have overcome significant personal and professional obstacles to share their journeys and offer actionable insights and strategies that the attendees can apply in their own lives. 

Visionary Conference Theme

4.  Back to the Future:  The business world is rapidly changing. What was relevant yesterday may not even exist today—think of companies like Netflix, Kodak, and Blockbuster. 

This theme takes a deep dive into history's role as the greatest teacher, pulling lessons from the past to flourish in the future. This corporate conference theme explores tales of businesses that either adapted innovatively to thrive or, on the flip side, failed to change and faded away to help attendees better understand the value of their past experiences and how they can be used to create a more successful future.

5.  Charting the Course:  Goal setting is important. However, having a clear vision and execution strategy is equally important. People who can vividly describe or picture their goals are  1.2 to 1.4 times  more likely to successfully meet them than others. Charting the course can be a great annual conference theme to reinforce the importance of setting clear goals and outlining the steps to achieve them. It should delve into strategic planning, goal-setting, and project management so every team can craft a roadmap that guides them to have a great year ahead.

6.  Facing the Future—Together:  Emphasizing the power of unity, this theme explores how collaboration and teamwork are crucial to overcoming challenges and achieving success. It should cover essential topics like communication, conflict resolution, and team building. This theme is perfect if you're looking to foster a spirit of cooperation among your team or organization, showing how collective effort can lead to remarkable achievements.

Leadership Conference Themes

7.  Becoming Agents of Change:  Deep dive into the art and science of change management by engaging with cutting-edge strategies for effecting change within organizations and communities. 

Call on some experts in the field to lead sessions on innovative change methodologies, such as design thinking and agile management, providing tools that can disrupt traditional approaches and foster a proactive change culture. Host workshops that tackle real-world problems and offer hands-on experience in overcoming resistance and engaging stakeholders effectively. The ultimate goal of this theme is to transform participants into change-makers who can confidently initiate and manage change.

8.  Leadership Challenge:  Today's leaders must be versatile, resilient, and forward-thinking. This theme addresses these needs by focusing on developing core leadership competencies required to excel in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. 

Use case studies, interactive panels, and skill-building sessions to discuss essential leadership qualities such as strategic decision-making, crisis management, and adaptive thinking. This will enhance participants' ability to lead diverse teams through challenges and opportunities alike and steer their organizations toward sustained success.

9.  The Power of You:  According to a survey by the  Harvard Business Review , 71% of employees claim that leadership programs significantly impact their job performance. So, having a conference theme like The Power of You can promote personal growth and leadership development and explore how individuals can tap into their latent potential and remove barriers that limit their performance. 

Through a combination of keynote speeches, collaborative sessions, and personal development workshops, delve into areas crucial for any leader, including emotional intelligence, effective communication, and strategic time management. Use success stories from seasoned leaders to inspire attendees and give practical exercises to help them practice new skills in real time. The goal is to empower each participant to become a more effective leader by focusing on self-awareness, team dynamics, and the practical application of leadership theories in everyday scenarios.

Teamwork/Collaboration Themes

10.  Higher, Faster, Stronger:  As the name suggests, this conference theme helps participants achieve greater success through effective teamwork and collaboration. Ultimately, it should help attendees develop the skills they need to build and lead high-performing teams. Participants will be better equipped to drive growth and achieve their goals by focusing on effective teamwork and collaboration. 

Cover topics like communication skills, conflict resolution, goal setting, time management, project management, and building a strong team culture. You can also feature case studies and success stories from industry leaders who have successfully built high-performing teams and achieved greater heights of success through effective teamwork and collaboration.

11.  Success through Synergy:  Employees who collaborate are known to be happier and more cohesive in teams than others. Use this theme to discuss the power of collaboration and teamwork in driving success. Discuss the latest strategies and tools for building effective teams and how to leverage the strengths and perspectives of different team members to achieve common goals.

In the end, attendees should understand how to develop the skills and mindset to build high-performing teams and achieve success through collaboration and synergy.

Competitive Themes

12.  No Stopping Us Now:  We've all felt that deflating sense of lost momentum at some point in our careers. Whether a last-minute client requirement changes or a major technical glitch, a small setback can steal our momentum and leave us questioning ourselves.

This is where a conference theme like this resonates. Use it to explain how to keep the momentum going and maintain a positive attitude in facing challenges and obstacles. Include a mix of inspiring keynote speakers who've bounced back from adversity, interactive workshops for refining the "bounce-back" mindset, and ways to stay motivated when the going gets tough. 

13.  Beat (Name of Biggest Competitor):  Your biggest competitor is your benchmark. It's the bar you will always aim to beat so that your product, service, or strategy stands above the rest.   

This conference theme is your battle plan. Take this opportunity to provide strategies for developing competitive advantages and outmaneuvering competition. Provide best practices for analyzing and responding to competitive threats and how to develop and execute effective competitive strategies. 

Marketing and Sales Conference Themes

14.  Discover the Difference:  Every product or service has something special that sets it apart. This conference helps attendees discover that unique value proposition and learn how to share it with the world. It aims to help them deeply understand their product or service and gain the skills to communicate its unique value to customers. 

15.  Selling Beyond Price:  Price is often a sensitive issue that decides the fate of a deal. Use this conference theme to encourage sales professionals to focus on other factors influencing customer decisions, such as value, quality, and customer experience.

It will help them develop a more nuanced understanding of the sales process and gain the skills needed to sell effectively, build lasting relationships with customers, and drive long-term growth.

16.  Get Momentum:  How do you build and sustain momentum in your sales and marketing efforts? This conference theme addresses this question. Cover topics like goal setting, time management, productivity hacks, building a strong team, and leveraging data and analytics to track progress and make informed decisions. You can also feature case studies and success stories from industry leaders who have successfully built and sustained results in their sales and marketing efforts.

Technology Themes

17.  The Power of AI and ML:  As the name suggests, this conference aims to promote the great potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)—both of which have propelled innovations previously thought impossible. 

Create a  conference agenda  that includes various aspects of AI and ML, such as the use of AI to solve major global challenges like climate change and healthcare. Explain how attendees can leverage these technologies to assist in learning processes and automate their workflows while ensuring data privacy and security. Feel free to elaborate on ethical considerations that must be factored in when deploying AI and ML. Design the conference content to suit developers, tech investors, and policymakers, among others.

18. Building a Cyber-Resilient Organization: Security in this digital world is paramount. Technology also poses evolving risks, including viruses, phishing scams, malware, and more. These threats can threaten personal information, financial assets, and even physical safety. Therefore, it is crucial to identify and combat these cyber threats.

Use this conference theme to cover a range of cybersecurity topics, including how to recognize online threats like spam and phishing links, the availability and use of anti-virus services, and the importance of regular software updates. Also, explain how to implement robust security measures and respond sustainably to security breaches. Given the ubiquity of cyber threats, invite a diverse range of participants from various sectors, including government, academia, and healthcare.

19.  Applying Design Thinking in Business:  Design thinking is a critical thinking skill. It includes a set of steps for solving a problem, including empathy, ideation, prototyping, and testing. This conference theme explores applying a design thinking mindset to solve complex problems. 

This approach encourages businesses to develop innovative and practical solutions that meet their users' needs. Call a diverse range of speakers, including designers, founders, and leaders who have successfully integrated design thinking into their organizations. By attending this multidisciplinary event, participants should walk away with valuable insights and practical skills to enhance their creativity and problem-solving abilities.

What are conference themes? 

The conference theme is, in essence, the "big idea" that ties the entire event together. It covers everything that happens at the conference—the speakers, the workshops, and sometimes even the type of food and beverages. A good theme should clarify what the conference is about, why the audience needs to be pumped up about attending, and help shape the entire experience.

Why is it important to choose a good theme for a conference?

Choosing a good theme for a conference is crucial for several reasons. First, the theme determines the mood and goals of the event by determining who the speakers, participants, and attendants will be. 

Next, a successful theme will help attract and maintain attendees' interest. If the participants are excited to attend an event with a catchy theme based on the topic, they are more likely to come and participate. A well-chosen theme can also provide participants with a shared sense of mission and community, making it easy to discover potential partnerships and other legitimate development areas. Thirdly, the right theme can enhance the conference's brand and reputation. 

A timely, relevant, and innovative theme can position the conference as a thought leader, attracting positive attention and media coverage. It can also differentiate it from other events, making it unforgettable for attendees and sponsors. Finally, a good theme offers a framework for measuring event success . By defining clear objectives and outcomes related to the theme, you can evaluate its impact and uncover areas for improvement in future events.

How do you choose a conference theme?

Choosing corporate conference themes requires careful consideration and planning . Here are some steps to guide you:  

Identify the conference's purpose and objectives:  Start by defining the conference's purpose and objectives. What do you hope to achieve? Who is your target audience? What topics are most relevant to them? Answering these questions will help you narrow your theme options and ensure the theme aligns with the conference's goals .

Research industry trends and hot topics:  Look for trends and hot topics in your industry or field. What are the current challenges and opportunities? What are the latest innovations and best practices? Choosing a timely and relevant theme can help generate interest and engagement among attendees.

Consider the needs and interests of your target audience:  Think about the needs and interests of your target audience. What topics are they most interested in? What challenges do they face? What skills do they need to develop? Choosing a theme that resonates with your audience can help to attract and retain attendees.

Brainstorm theme ideas:  Once you have a clear understanding of the conference's purpose, industry trends, and audience needs, brainstorm a list of potential theme ideas. Be creative and think outside the box. Consider using a mind map or other visual tool to organize your themes and  conference marketing ideas .

Evaluate and refine your theme options:  Review your list of potential themes and evaluate them based on relevance, timeliness, and appeal to your target audience. Refine your list by combining or eliminating themes until you have a shortlist of top contenders.

Test your theme with stakeholders:  Before finalizing your theme, test it with key stakeholders such as speakers, sponsors, and attendees. Gather feedback and use it to refine and improve your theme as needed.

Final Thoughts

Conferences are powerful catalysts for learning, networking , and driving business success. A well-crafted theme is the key to ensuring your conference leaves a lasting impact. By focusing on your audience's needs, staying ahead of industry trends, and choosing a theme that inspires and resonates, you'll create an experience that motivates attendees, builds connections, and promotes growth.

Up next, read our comprehensive  conference management guide , which includes everything from the difference between conferences and events to  virtual conference platforms  and their features to types of conferences and more.

John Hunter

John is the Senior Manager of Event Cloud Content Marketing at Cvent. He has 11 years of experience writing about the meetings and events industry. John also has extensive copywriting experience across diverse industries, including broadcast television, retail advertising, associations, higher education, and corporate PR.

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80 Fun Meeting Icebreakers Your Team Will Love in 2024

When people hear “meeting icebreaker,” they think of ”bonding exercises.” In this post I share 15 meeting icebreakers that are anti-boring and easy.

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When most people hear the word “icebreaker,” they think of boring, silly, or awkward. In this post, I want to share 80 meeting icebreakers that are:

• quick-bonding

If you are a meeting planner, team leader , or event organizer (or simply want to make your meetings a little better), you MUST watch this video for my personal favorites:

And if you want better meetings, you MUST send this article to your meeting planner. I’m going to convince you to upgrade the age-old icebreaker.

What is an Icebreaker?

An icebreaker is an activity, event, or game that is designed to break down social barriers, make others feel more comfortable, and facilitate social interaction. Icebreakers are usually performed at the beginning of a meeting or team session and involve a group of people. 

After hosting hundreds of meetings every year, from conferences to sales team retreats , one thing I’ve learned is that an icebreaker truly can make or break an event. Here’s the crazy science on this:

• Harvard Business School professor Michael Norton gathered 221 participants and had them form groups of two to four people. 
• Then, he asked them to do a campus scavenger hunt where they had to run around taking selfies in front of specific locations. 
• *There was a catch. Half of the teams were asked to do a pre-scavenger hunt icebreaker together, and the other half were simply asked to read an article together. 

The results were clear. The teams that did the icebreaker reported liking each other more . This is incredible! Icebreakers improved performance, time, AND likability . 

Here’s a list of my favorite icebreakers to avoid having those awkward meetings.

Virtual Meeting Icebreakers

Not all meetings nowadays are in-person. Some are virtual. These fun icebreakers can be performed anytime, anywhere, no matter the distance!

Icebreaker #1: Show and Tell

Best For: Turning coworkers into show-and-tell-loving third graders again!

This is one of my favorite virtual icebreakers. Why? Because it reveals what your teammates really value! Here’s how to perform this icebreaker:

• Ask your remote team members to grab a nearby item (or even send a personal picture through group chat!). This item should be unique to them.
• Share! Take turns sharing your item and the story or personal meeting behind it.

For example, I recently shared in my weekly team meeting a small personal item: a llama doll I received from one of my friends! It was a great way to show to my remote team how I value small gifts from friends, and an easy icebreaker, too. Win-win!

Icebreaker #2: Teach Something New

Best For: Learning new things, boosting confidence in presentation skills, and promoting engagement and fun in team meetings.

If you like having mini TED Talks sprinkled into your meetings, this one’s for you! “Teach Something New” is one of my favorite icebreakers—each team member will have, say, 5 minutes to teach everyone one little thing. It could be how to draw a giraffe, how to juggle, or a magic trick.

Here’s how you can introduce this activity:

• Encourage team members to think about a skill or knowledge snippet they can share within a 5-minute time slot.
• At the start of the meeting, ask for a volunteer to go first. They will have 5 minutes to teach their chosen topic.
• Other participants should engage by asking questions or offering thoughts on the subject. Remember, the goal is to promote a light, fun learning environment.

Icebreaker #3: Creative Selfie

Best For: Showcasing workspace creativity, bonding, and inspiring décor discussions.

Zoom backgrounds make meetings fun, but they don’t help people get to know each other very well. Location-specific photo challenges could start more personalized conversations because they’ll reveal new things about each coworker.

• Explain the Activity: Let everyone know they need to take a creative selfie at their workspace.
• Take Selfies: Team members take their workspace selfies—could be in their home office, a coffee shop, or an outdoor setup.
• Share the Pictures: Each participant shares their selfie in the group chat or designated platform.
• Decide the Winner: The picture that is deemed the most creative (based on your established criteria) wins.

People don’t need to share their location or name their city if they feel uncomfortable. The point is to showcase everyone’s workplace setting because it speaks to their personalities.

After the scavenger hunt, team members could also swap decor ideas to elevate their remote workstations. It may open doors to conversations about their hobbies, pets, and other interests based on what showed up in everyone’s selfies.

Icebreaker #4: Guess The Words (Codenames Online)

Best For: Strategic minds seeking to decode enigmatic clues and outsmart opponents in a witty word game.

If you’ve ever played one of my favorite board games , Codenames, this one packs all the fun—but now, it’s online! In this word game, each Spymaster tries to get the other team to guess a combination of words on the table by giving a one-word clue. For example, in the above picture, if you needed to have your teammates guess the words “Bowl” and “Knife,” you might give the clue “Kitchen.”

If you’ve never played Codenames, this one’s a great starter icebreaker that’s super helpful if you want to boost creativity.

• Head on over to https://www.codenames.game/ .
• Click on the CREATE ROOM button.
• Select the preferred game settings and start the game.
• Connect with your friends using your favorite audio or video chat.
• Share the room URL with your friends.
• Enjoy the game!

Icebreaker #5: Draw Anything Your Teammates Imagine

Best For: People who love drawing (even if they are terrible at it!)

Even if you’re not artistic, this game is absolutely funny and fun. Gartic Phone gives you a short time frame to sketch photos based on other players’ prompts—and can result in some hilarious artwork.

Imagine trying to draw your teammate’s prompt of “Harry Potter riding a unicorn in space.”

The weirder the prompt, the crazier the doodles! Here’s how to play this game that combines the classic games “Pictionary” with “Telephone.”

• Go over to https://garticphone.com .
• Whip up a nickname and select an avatar that screams “you.”
• Hit “Start.”
• Click the “Invite” button and broadcast the link to your team.
• Once the game starts up, everyone is invited to write down a hilarious sentence.
• Wait for a sentence from your colleague, and then give it your artistic spin.
• Next, it’s your turn to interpret someone else’s doodle by guessing the original sentence.
• Have fun and unleash your inner Van Gogh!

Icebreaker #6: Meet the Pet (or child, or partner, or plant)

Best For: Animal lovers, whether furry, leafy, or miniature human ones!

This icebreaker idea is super simple , and who doesn’t like pets? It’s best performed for remote teams that are newer and/or as a first-day icebreaker. Here’s how:

• Have your remote team grab their pets or show a picture of them.
• Start the introductions! You can start off with the basics (name, age, where you got him/her), but make sure to throw in one personal/fun story you had with your pet.

Pro tip: If your teammate does not have a pet, ask them to describe their ideal pet. Or meet each other’s kids. Or meet each other’s plants. Feeling funky? Ask them what their spirit animal is!

Icebreaker #7: Draw and Guess

Best For: Tapping into your team’s inner Picasso while testing their quick-thinking skills in a vibrant guessing game.

If you’re a big fan of draw-and-guess games, then this one’s for you! Drawasaurus is Pictionary with a twist where everyone gets a shot at the scoreboard—the artist and the guessers alike. The game slips a secret word to the doodler, who then creates a visual puzzle for others to solve. The speed of your guesses matters—quicker guesses mean more points.

If every participant manages to decode the drawing, the artist also hits a points jackpot. This sure adds an extra dose of fun to the classic game, doesn’t it?

• Head on over to https://www.drawasaurus.org .
• Choose a nickname (no stress, this won’t kick off the game).
• Tap + Create a Room.
• Make your room Private, give it a name, set a password, and select the number of players you want.
• Copy the link from the URL bar and send it over to your team.
• When everyone’s geared up and clicks Ready to Play, the game begins.
• Take turns picking a word to sketch, while others try to guess it.
• Rack up points by being the quickest to guess correctly.

Icebreaker #8: Explore The World

Best For: Best For: Armchair explorers and globetrotters looking to test their geography and deduction skills in a thrilling virtual quest.

I absolutely love GeoGuessr—it’s especially fun if your team is located across the globe or loves to travel.

GeoGuessr is a captivating global exploration game that virtually parachutes you into a random corner of the world, using a street view panorama. Your objective? To scour the surroundings for clues that might help pinpoint your exact location on the world map.

For example, GeoGuessr might drop you in a random spot on a canal, and you might use building signs or other clues to help you guess where in the world you are.

Here’s how to play:

• Head to https://www.geoguessr.com/ .
• Sign up for an account.
• Click on “Party” to create your own room.
• Invite your friends by sending them your unique room code.
• Start playing!

*GeoGuessr does cost a small monthly fee for team play, although it is still recommended.

Icebreaker #9: Phone Photo

Best For: Revealing hidden layers of team members through snapshots of their most memorable (or embarrassing) moments!

Do you want to get to know your team on a more personal note? This icebreaker activity is a great way to break the ice by putting your most embarrassing/awkward/awesome/proud moments up front for the world to see.

• Before the video call starts, send out a team message to find an embarrassing/awkward/proud/awesome/proud photo on their phone and post it in the group chat. 
• When the call begins, share the details about your photo! The more ridiculous the photo, the more laughs you’ll get out of this icebreaker.

Everyone has an interesting photo on their phone, so this is a great activity for everyone! Here’s mine…

Icebreaker #10: Partner Lunch

Best For: Cultivating deeper connections over shared meals and intimate one-on-one discussions.

Want a fun way to make a meeting more… dare I say… delicious? Enter: the Partner Lunch. This icebreaker requires a bit of prep work with your team, and it’ll be better if you’re in similar time zones.

• Schedule a time where you and your team can video call and eat a meal together.
• Find a partner. Randomly assign partners in your team to talk one-on-one for 10-20 minutes before your group call.
• Talk! Now’s a great time for the partners to get to know each other over lunch. You can even have a list of deep questions to help facilitate discussion.

Icebreaker #11: Personal Logo

Best For: Encouraging creativity, self-expression, and understanding team members on a personal level.

The Personal Logo icebreaker is a fantastic way to get your team’s creative juices flowing. It’s not just about doodling a pretty image—it’s a window into each person’s world, reflecting their personality, interests, or passions. Here’s how to get this activity buzzing:

• Give guidelines on what the logo should include—it could be a combination of symbols, initials, colors, or abstract shapes. Stress that artistic skills are not being judged; it’s the thought and creativity that count!
• Set a timer for the creation process. 5-10 minutes should suffice for a quick sketch. If doing this in a meeting, consider having a quick discussion while everyone works on their logos.
• Each participant shares their logo on screen (either by holding up their drawing or sharing it digitally) and explains the concept behind it.
• Encourage team members to give positive feedback and ask questions about each logo.
• If your team enjoyed this, you could even consider having these personal logos professionally made or used in some team swag !

Icebreaker #12: Scattegories

Best For: Engaging quick-witted competitors who enjoy a playful battle of words and ideas.

Flexing your rapid-fire brainstorming muscle becomes a thrilling challenge in Scattergories. The person steering the game can select categories as general as fashion and wildlife or as quirky as “famous comic book catchphrases.”

In every round, the game highlights a random letter from the alphabet, asking players to think on their feet and come up with any word or phrase from the chosen category starting with that letter. This game serves as a fantastic icebreaker, especially for those in your crew who can’t resist a competitive streak.

• Go over to https://scattergoriesonline.net/new-game.xhtml .
• Select your game categories, maybe you like “Team names,” “Thiings You Shouldn’t Touch,” or “Superpowers.”
• Hit the Create new game button.
• Set up the game’s variables—the starting letters (a majority will be preset), player count, and round numbers.
• In the “Who can join” section, opt for Invited friends.
• Click again on Create new game.
• Grab the link and send it to your teammates.
• Everyone will be racing against the clock to fill multiple categories with words starting with a designated letter.
• Get through all the rounds and discover which teammate boasts the most impressive word arsenal!

Icebreaker #13: Virtual Background Contest

Best For: Adding a fun twist to virtual meetings, sparking creativity, and enhancing team members’ storytelling skills.

This fun-filled activity not only adds a splash of color and joy to your meetings but it also nudges team members to showcase their creative sides and storytelling skills. Let’s see how you can get this show on the road:

• Challenge your team members to pick a virtual background that is uniquely creative or amusingly original.
• During the meeting, set aside time for each participant to present their background choice, along with the story or concept behind it.
• After all presentations, host a vote to select the “Virtual Background Champion”. This could be a quick poll or even a show of hands.
• Celebrate the winner and offer them a chance to lead off the next meeting or decide the theme for the forthcoming contest.

Pro Tip: Having a hard time picking a Zoom background? Check out our guide: 101 Best Zoom Backgrounds to Rock Your Next Meeting

Icebreaker #14: One Word at a Time

Best For: Storytelling enthusiasts ready to weave a quirky narrative, one unpredictable word at a time.

This game is commonly known as “One Word at a Time.” It’s a simple and fun icebreaker or warm-up activity for groups, and it’s also super popular if you’ve ever done improv as well.

Here’s how to get started:

• Start the Game: The first person begins the story by saying a single word. It’s often easiest to start with “Once,” but any word that can start a story is fine.
• Continue the Story: The next person in line adds another word to the story, and this continues with each participant adding a single word in turn. This can follow a designated order, like going in a circle or following the order of participants listed in a video call.
• Listen Carefully: Participants need to listen to each word carefully to make sure their word makes sense in the context of the story.
• End the Story: Eventually, the story will reach a natural conclusion. Typically, the facilitator or someone who senses a good ending coming might say “And” and the next person can say “The” and then “End” to wrap it up.

Icebreaker #15: Change My Mind

Best For: Encouraging communication skills, team bonding through friendly debates, and a creative way to learn about diverse viewpoints.

This isn’t just your run-of-the-mill icebreaker—it’s a fun-packed mini-debate club that can spice up your meeting. Best part? While your team enjoys this engaging banter , they’ll also polish their communication skills, flex their persuasive abilities, and experience the art of friendly debate. I love this icebreaker for flexing your creativity!

Here’s how to pull it off:

• Introduce the game and ask a teammate to share a non-controversial opinion.
• Set a timer for two minutes. During this time, the rest of the team attempts to sway the opinion-holder’s view.
• After the timer ends, the teammate shares if they’ve been persuaded and why.
• Repeat with the next person.

Icebreaker #16: Rotating Questions

Best For: Diving into your teammates’ minds through a volley of thoughtful and unexpected queries.

In small groups, you can use great questions to get people to open up. 

• Gather a list of icebreaker questions, or check out my favorite 57 conversation starters you can use.
• Have everyone take turns answering questions. If they don’t like a question, they can choose another one to answer!

Icebreaker #17: Culture Exchange

Best For: Promoting cultural awareness, fostering deeper connections, broadening perspectives, and keeping meetings engaging.

This simple, yet incredibly powerful activity, invites participants to share a tradition or custom from their culture. But here’s where we crank up the heat: don’t just stop at explaining the custom. Bring it to life! Share a personal anecdote, cook up a traditional recipe live, showcase an artifact, or even perform a quick traditional dance if you’re up for it.

It’s not just about sharing, it’s about experiencing. This allows for deeper connections, broader perspectives, and hey, it makes for an incredibly fascinating meeting. Just remember to keep the shares short and sweet to keep the momentum going.

Icebreaker #18: Quiz Time

Best For: Uncovering hidden team traits and testing trivia prowess with a friendly dose of competition.

One of the most fun icebreaker activities is to take quizzes and compare the results with your team! Here at Science of People, we absolutely LOVE quizzes. We’ve got a ton of quizzes backed with science to help you and your team understand each other:

• How open are you to new experiences? Are you extroverted or more introverted? Are you agreeable? See your traits in our Personality Test !
• Are you good at figuring out nonverbal communication? See if you can spot these cues with the Body Language Quiz .
• Have you ever noticed you date the same kind of person over and over again? That’s because we have specific attachment styles—find out yours in our Attachment Styles Quiz ! 
• Do you love trivia? You can check out a list of other quizzes on Sporcle .

Icebreakers You Can Do In Person

If you can’t take advantage of icebreakers for virtual meetings, don’t sweat it! Here are some icebreaker ideas you can do in person. 

And if you want to increase your charisma while you’re at it, check this out:

Unlock the Secrets of Charisma

Control and leverage the tiny signals you’re sending – from your stance and facial expressions to your word choice and vocal tone – to improve your personal and professional relationships.

Succeed with People

Master the laws of human behavior. Get along with anyone, increasing your influence, impact, and income.

Let’s dive in!

Icebreaker #19: The Candy Game

Best For: Sweet-toothed conversationalists ready to trade colorful candy for flavorful personal insights.

This is my favorite icebreaker because you combine easy bonding with the best possible ingredient: sugar! To coordinate this icebreaker:

• Pick your favorite kind of multi-colored candy–a bowl of M&Ms, Starbursts, Skittles, or whatever tickles your fancy.
• Next, pass around the bowl and ask people to take as many candy pieces as they like, but NOT to eat them.
• Once the bowl of candy has been passed around, each person has to answer a question for each color they take. For example, you can assign questions such as:

Red: What’s your favorite book?

Orange: What’s the best vacation spot you have ever been to?

Blue: What’s your favorite kind of food?

Green: What TV show are you addicted to?

Brown: If you could have any superhero quality, what would it be? 

Yellow: What’s the best part of your work week?

Icebreaker #20: The Marshmallow Game

Best For: Creative builders looking to showcase teamwork and engineering skills with a side of sweet victory.

Another icebreaker based on food? Of course! This icebreaker’s end goal is to build the tallest freestanding structure… out of spaghetti, string, tape, and a marshmallow. And if that wasn’t enough? The marshmallow has to be on top! Here’s how to play:

• Divide your group into teams of four.
• Hand each group these four things: 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow.
• Set a timer for 18 minutes. After 18 minutes, the team with the tallest standing structure wins!

This is a great team-building exercise and also forces your teammates to cooperate with each other. I also recommend giving out a prize to the winning team—stacking uncooked spaghetti is definitely not an easy task! This icebreaker was originally introduced by Tom Wujec, who made a TED talk about it, which you can check out here:

Icebreaker #21: I-Spy Riddle Scavenger Hunt

Best For: Injecting fun into mundane schedules, sparking adventurous spirits, and stirring up the team’s inner explorers.

If you want people to get out of the office, you also can have your icebreaker be a mini scavenger hunt. It can be around town, around the office, or around the building. 

For example, hunting for bugs is a great way to create an outdoor scavenger hunt for kids or adults. They can take a picture of the first bug they come across, which might not take long. Being outside will refresh everyone so they’re more energetic for whatever’s next on their daily calendar.

Want more ideas? Check out our list: 40+ Scavenger Hunt Games You Can Try Virtually or in Person

Icebreaker #22: Two Truths and One Lie

Best For: Laughter and bonding through uncovering truths and hilarious fibs!

I love the game “Two Truths and One Lie,” because it allows you to get a little more creative with your teams and to have some fun. 

• Start by asking each person to come up with two facts about themselves and one believable fib. 
• I have a pet turtle.
• Growing up, my family called me “Sasa” as a nickname.
• I speak Mandarin.

Can you guess which is the lie?

I do not have a pet turtle! Yes, my family called me Sasa because my little sisters couldn’t say “Vanessa.” And I lived in China during college. Fun facts, right? This icebreaker is a great way to get to know each other, and to have some laughs along the way.

Special Note: If you have introverts in the group, it’s nice to let the group know ahead of time that they should think of two truths and one lie for the meeting. This is helpful for not putting people on the spot.

Icebreaker #23: Desert Island Scenario

Best For: Adventure seekers ready to share their survival instincts and imaginative flair in a hypothetical scenario.

Spice up your virtual meetings with the Desert Island Scenario. It’s fun, it’s simple, and it’s your ticket to knowing your colleagues in an intriguing new way. 

Here’s how:

• Set the Scene: Tell your team to imagine they’re about to be stranded on a desert island.
• Pick Three: Ask each person to come up with three items they’d take with them. Real or imaginary, practical or bizarre, it’s their call.
• Share and Explain: During the meeting, everyone shares their chosen items and explains why they picked them.
• Have Fun: Enjoy the hilarious, touching, or surprising revelations!

Pro Tip: Give your teammates a heads-up to come prepared with their three items. Nobody likes being put on the spot, and it gives them a chance to think about their answers and let their imaginations run wild. Plus, it builds anticipation for the big reveal.

Icebreaker #24: Paper Airplane Game

Best For: Unleashing creativity and learning fascinating facts through airborne paper revelations!

I love this icebreaker because it is more hands-on. 

• Pass out different-colored sheets of paper to each person attending the meeting. 
• Then, ask everyone to write an interesting fact about themselves on the piece of paper and fold it into a paper airplane. 
• Then, everyone launches their paper airplane around the room. 
• Finally, everyone retrieves one of the paper airplanes, reads the fact, and guesses whose paper airplane they got. 

It’s fun to guess, and you learn new things about each other!

Icebreaker #25: Guess The Item

Best For: Sparking curiosity, igniting laughter, and providing a unique, tactile team-building experience.

Want to challenge your team’s senses and create some laughs along the way? “Guess the Item” is the perfect in-person icebreaker to mix things up. I love this game because it tests your team’s sense of touch and sparks curiosity.

Here’s how you can introduce this tactile teaser to your next gathering:

• Prior to the meeting, gather various objects of different textures, shapes, and sizes. Place each object in a separate paper bag.
• During the meeting, invite each participant to reach into a bag without peeking and try to identify the object inside only by touch.
• Allow each participant to share their guesses. The group can have fun discussing and debating what the mysterious object might be.
• Reveal the object to the group once all the guesses are in.
• Rotate until everyone has had a turn.

Icebreaker #26: Year of the Coin

Best For: Unearthing memories and forging connections as you journey back in time with coins as your guide.

Have a bowl of coins sitting at home? Perfect! They are great for icebreakers. 

• Sort through the bowl to make sure you don’t have any coins that are too old
• Then have everyone pick a coin out of the bowl. 
• Go around and ask each person to share something they were doing the year the coin was minted. 

This is great for getting to know someone’s past—and to test people’s memories.

Icebreaker #27: One Common Thing

Best For: Discovering unique similarities among your teammates.

This is a great icebreaker if you want to get people moving around the room. 

• Give everyone a list with each person’s name on it. 
• Set a timer and have people go around and find one commonality with each person in the room. 

The key is, you cannot share the same commonality with anyone else. If everyone in the room works at the same company, that commonality wouldn’t count. This is a way to get people exploring beyond what they already know about each other.

Icebreaker #28: Lego Tower Challenge

Best For: Encouraging teamwork, creative problem-solving, and healthy competition within a fun, hands-on environment.

Looking to unlock the hidden architects within your team and promote a bit of friendly competition? The “Lego Tower Challenge” is the perfect way to engage your team. This hands-on activity encourages teamwork, creativity, and quick thinking under time constraints. 

Here are the steps:

• Divide your team into smaller groups, preferably of equal size. Provide each team with the same number of Lego bricks.
• Set a timer for the challenge. This could range from 5 minutes to 15 minutes, depending on the complexity you wish to add.
• The objective is simple yet challenging: each team has to build the tallest Lego tower possible within the given time.
• Once the timer goes off, it’s time to measure the towers. The team with the tallest standing tower wins!
• Debrief and discuss. Ask each team to share their strategies and thought processes. This can lead to interesting insights about teamwork and problem-solving.

Icebreaker #29: Speed Networking

Best For: Rapid connections, exchanging thoughts and laughs in a lively speed networking setup.

A speed networking session doesn’t just have to be for networking or new people. It also can be for groups that want to get to know each other. You can even do this with a large group of people, as long as you have a big open space. 

• Ask everyone in the room to find a partner.
• Give everyone a conversation starter to answer and set a timer for two minutes. Each person has one minute to answer.
• After both people have answered and the two-minute timer is up, have them find a new partner and assign them a new conversation starter.

You can do as many rounds as time allows. If you have a small group, you can make sure everyone in the room gets at least one turn with each other.

Icebreaker #30: Pictionary

Best For: Harnessing creativity, boosting team spirit and light-hearted competition through drawing and guessing.

Here’s the last icebreaker and also a fun one: Pictionary! You can do it online, as mentioned before, but it’s also an amazing game to play at home —you can even bring it to your meetings as a cool icebreaker activity.

If you’ve never played before, Pictionary is basically a word-guessing game where one player chooses a randomly selected word and draws it while the other players guess what the word is. Normal Pictionary is played using a physical board and pencils/pens.

You can also print out a Pictionary board here and a word list here , and use candy pieces as playing pieces!

What Are Good Icebreaker Questions?

Icebreaker questions are a fun, easy way to get to know people and lighten the mood. They are similar to icebreaker activities but usually do not require much or any preparation at all.

Here are some great icebreaker questions you can ask!

Icebreaker Questions to Get to Know Your Teammates

• What is your proudest accomplishment?
• If you could write a book, what would it be about?
• What is the happiest moment in your life? What made it so special?
• What is the scariest thing you’ve ever done for fun?
• What is the best gift you’ve ever given/received?
• What is your dream job?
• What is something you were known for in college/high school?
• What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
• Where is one place you’d love to travel to?
• What does your ideal day look like?

Fun Icebreaker Questions

• What is your spirit animal?
• Who would win in a fight: a horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses?
• If you were a color, what would it be? 
• What superpower would you choose to have? Why?
• What was your favorite television show as a kid?
• If you had a time machine, what time period would you travel to?
• If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?
• If you had one wish, what would you wish for?
• If you were stranded on an island, what 3 things would you bring with you?
• What song best describes you?

Personal Development Icebreaker Questions

• What’s one skill you’d like to improve this year, and why?
• Can you share a book that significantly influenced your life or career?
• What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
• Can you name a person who has had a significant impact on your professional development? How so?
• If you could go back and give your 18-year-old self a piece of advice, what would it be?
• What’s an accomplishment you’re proud of from the past year?
• If you had unlimited resources, what kind of project or business would you start?
• What’s a goal you’ve set for yourself recently, and what steps are you taking to achieve it?
• How do you handle stress and maintain a work-life balance?
• If you could learn about any new topic or skill, without any constraints of time or money, what would it be?

Travel and Leisure Icebreaker Questions

• What’s the most interesting place you’ve ever visited?
• If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?
• What’s the longest trip you’ve ever taken?
• Do you prefer nature trips or city trips? Why?
• What’s your most essential travel item?
• Have you ever traveled alone? What was that like?
• What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever eaten while traveling?
• Have you ever visited a place just because you saw it in a book or a movie?
• What’s one travel experience you’ll never forget?
• If you could live in any city in the world, where would you choose and why?

Work Preference Icebreaker Questions

• Do you prefer working in teams or independently? Why?
• How do you typically organize your workday for maximum productivity?
• What motivates you most at work?
• What kind of work environment helps you to be most productive?
• Do you prefer to have clear guidelines or do you like having the freedom to figure things out yourself?
• What part of your work process do you find most fulfilling?
• How do you handle feedback and criticism at work?
• What is your preferred method of communication in a professional setting (email, phone call, in-person, etc.)?
• How do you usually handle tight deadlines or high-pressure situations?
• How do you ensure a good work-life balance?

How Long Should an Icebreaker Last?

An icebreaker should not be too long, or it will take time away from the actual meeting. Icebreakers typically last anywhere from 5 minutes to 20 minutes. It should last enough time for people to feel comfortable and relaxed enough to easily discuss more important topics later on in the meeting.

These are my favorite icebreakers, and they work for different-sized groups. When thinking about having a successful meeting or retreat, we often think about the basics, such as a strong agenda, a yummy lunch, and planning. These are all good strategies, but don’t forget about the professional warm-up. A good icebreaker can break the tension, break the awkwardness and, of course, break the ice.

To your success,

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27 thoughts on “80 fun meeting icebreakers your team will love in 2024”.

Hello Mam, I Abhisek from India I really like your concept for developing people skill in new and innovative way it’s really appreciate.. Thanks for giving new way of thinking..

Great ideas, thank you.

I really love your videos especially the 8 icebreakers to warm up meetings, I,d liked to hack 😊them in our virtual meeting, I’m also an aspiring writer and wanted to publish my own book that have part of games and add some icebreakers whoo , your book is interesting, I hope I could grab one sooner or later, thanks Miss Vanessa

Miriam Reyes from Philippines Teacher,Facilitator Aspiring Life Coach,writer and Motivational speaker

So helpful and fun. Thanks for the good job!

I’ve been working my way through these with my team over the course of the pandemic, and these ideas have been great. However, I was surprised to see the inclusion of the term ‘spirit animal’ which is now considered by many to be an appropriation of traditional Indigenous spirituality. Would you consider changing that to something like patronus, role model, doppleganger, inner avatar, animal twin? There are lots of other options!

Hi Bizhiki, thank you so much for going through our meeting icebreakers! You have a very valid point, and we have changed the wording to a more appropriate question. Hope this helps! Rob | Science of People Team

Hi, I echo Bizhiki’s objection to using the phrase “spirit animal” – and it is still on the page, despite Rob’s performative comment about changing it.

Hello! Thank you so much for helping call attention to this issue. We have insured that this reference and any others have been removed from our site.

All the best, Bekah | Science of People Team

We are having a little workplace drama in my office currently. I have decided to introduce some teambuilding warm-ups to our weekly team meeting. I appreciate all of the creative ideas here on your website. I will let you know how it goes!

Comments are closed.

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1. Classic Summertime BBQ

Why it works: Outside of the office, everyone can be comfortable in their casual summertime apparel, so it’s a little less formal. That creates a laid-back atmosphere where employees are more likely to let their guard down, shoot the breeze with one another, and network across the company. It’s one of those corporate event themes that doesn’t end up feeling so corporate.

Setting: A park setting by a lake is the perfect location, plus it’s usually a free or low-cost option.

Decor: Go for big white tents, picnic tables covered in plaid tablecloths, checkered blankets, and balloons. And if you want to go really big with your decor, try these 35 summer decor ideas .

Food: Don’t overthink it: Serve burgers, hot dogs, potato salad, corn on the cob ” you get the idea.

Beverages:  On a hot summer day, you can keep it simple with cold beer and lemonade. For something a bit fancier, mix up a cold cocktail like mint juleps.

Activities: Set up simple outdoor games such as croquet, badminton, or cornhole. You can even do company Olympics by having team compete in traditional field-day games like dodgeball or relay races.

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2. Winter Wonderland

Why it works: For holiday parties, it’s important to be inclusive ” but that can make it a little tricky to choose a theme. Something that highlights the season is simple but effective.

Plus , guests always enjoy dressing up for the season, so you probably don’t need to set a concrete dress code to get everyone to show up in their holiday best. Just get the word out that things will be a little more on the formal end.

Food: For a more formal event, go with traditional plated options such as tenderloin, chicken, salmon, or grilled portabellas for a vegetarian option.

Beverages:  To play off the season’s flavors, serve hot toddies, cranberry-infused martinis, red wine, and dark winter beers.

Activities: Since it’s the end of the year, this is the perfect time to share company holiday video and recap of the year’s wins. After that, a little music and dancing can’t hurt!

Decor: The decor options are endless: We like the idea of sparkling jewel tones or a white-on-white color palette. Winter classics like poinsettia plants, fireplaces, and cozy blankets will add to the atmosphere. And let’s face it ” you should probably include a snowflake or two.

Most importantly, corporate planners need to be sure event themes are appropriate for the setting and company culture. Click To Tweet

3. Spring Has Sprung

Why it works: What’s a better way to celebrate closing out Q1 than by “springing” into Q2? After all, you’re off to a fresh start and nothing says fresh like the spring season. “Spring” is a great theme on its own, but if for a more niche theme, check out these 25 creative spring themes for parties and events.

Food: Spring has no shortage of in-season vegetables, so plan on special salads, veggie-packed hoers d’oeuvres, and pasta primavera.

Beverages: Keep things light and fresh! We’re thinking white wine, Moscow mules, and lemonade.

Activities: If you’ll be outdoors, take advantage! Plan a picnic, bean bag toss, bocce ball, group hike, or other patio-friendly games.

Decor:  Whatever you do, decorate with bright green topiaries, lots of beautiful flowers, and plenty of pastels. The theme is pretty versatile, so feel free to set a dress code as you see fit.

Setting: You can find a classy outdoor space such as a manicured museum lawn or a local botanic garden, or bring things inside with the option for a patio. 

4. Carnival-Inspired Corporate Event Theme

Why it works: Want a corporate event theme that everyone will remember? Throw a carnival-themed party! Between the performers, activities, and out-of-the-box decor, you’ll create an event that really sets itself apart.

Food:  Bring in classic fair food like hot dogs, funnel cakes, and elephant ears. If you want to be a little more sophisticated, you can put an upscale twist on those traditional foods. For example, serve turkey corn dogs and fries with vindaloo ketchup. 

Beverages:  No need to overthink int: Beer, cider, and a carnival-themed drink will do the trick.

Activities:  Hire a magician or a balloon artist to roam around the crowd. Set up fun game stations like ring toss. And you can never go wrong with a photo booth!

Decor:  If you can’t get a big-top tent, go for circus-tent inspired patterns, lots of bulb lights, and plenty of bright colors.

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Why it works: Take advantage of sporting events like March Madness and the MLB playoffs. Get everyone showing their colors and watching the games together. Or, create camaraderie among employees by going out to a local sporting event ” whether it’s an NFL game or a local hockey league. And remember, beer and nachos have the power to bond people.

Food:  You’ve got to have those favorite game-day snacks ” wings, nachos, fries, pizza, and ice cream, please!

Beverages:  It’s all about the beer! Offer a well-rounded beer list, and cider for gluten-free attendees. (A few wine and liquor options might also be nice.)

Activities:  Host a watch party at a sports bar, or go to a local game.

Decor:  Decorate with elements from the type of sport (like goal posts for a football game). And don’t hold back on the team colors.

Our free pocket planner app can also help you calculate and keep track of your catering costs and beyond ” all you need to know is how many people are going to attend!

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6. Tidying Up 

Why it works: It’s a trend that promotes both happiness and productivity – perfect for the well-rounded office team looking for a little pick-me-up. 

Setting: Your office is the perfect place for a little Marie Kondo magic . 

Decor: While you don’t need much for the decor, you can certainly bring in some fun supplies like new containers, storage bins, and drawer organizers. 

Food: Because Marie Kondo is a literal fairy person, things like cupcakes and marshmallow bars add a touch of whimsy to the event while health nuts might take inspiration from the health aspect of the tidying up movement.

Beverages: If you plan this party during work hours, make sure you have some coffee and tea on hands to help give one that little extra energy boost. 

Activities: Screen an episode or two of Netflix’s Tidying Up with Marie Kondo then invite everyone to makeover their office or desk in the unique KonMari fashion. 

7. DIY Taco Fiesta 

Why it works: It’s hard to turn down this delicious dish that can be made to everyone’s individual tastes without any extra hassle. 

Setting: If the weather’s nice consider heading outside to a park or the greenest space near your office to set up a picnic. Otherwise, your meeting room works too! 

Decor: Chili peppers, colorful ribbons and bunting, avocado arrangements, and hot sauce bottle flower holders all make for a festive and bright celebration. 

Food: Set out a buffet station with freshly prepared veggies, meats, and taco fixings so everyone can make their perfect meal. 

Beverages: Margaritas are an excellent way to round out the theme but a chia seed watermelon and lemonade agua fresca (or any agua fresca really) is a great non-alcoholic option. 

Activities: Besides getting to make and enjoy their own tacos, guests can try their hand at cracking open a pinata or show off their cooking skills at a guacamole making competition. 

8. Murder Mystery Party

Why it works: When you hire a murder mystery company , they basically give you an entire night of entertainment and make sure everything runs smoothly for you. A virtually stress-free experience if you don’t count the killer on the loose! 

Setting: Your murder mystery guides will usually give you the option to use your own space or hire theirs for the evening. The advantage of hiring theirs is you don’t have to worry about set up or take down! 

Decor: Your decor should match the theme and location of the mystery. The most common ones are classic trains and southern gothic mansions. 

Food: If you spring for a full meal stick to the mystery theme, but a great wine and cheese spread is also excellent for this kind of party. 

Beverages: Themed cocktails, mocktails, and a quality selection of wines should be crowd pleasers. 

Activities: Solve a (fake) murder mystery complete with hired actors, cool props, and fake identities for you and your whole company. 

9. Mini-Golf Tournament

Why it works: It can happen rain or shine with both indoor and outdoor venue options. 

Setting: Rent out your local mini-golf location. Or create your own either DIY or with a kit and host the tournament down the halls of your office! 

Decor: Faux turf, oversized golf tee platters, and putt-putt-themed cupcakes are just some of your many golf themed options. 

Food: You can combine this with the Summertime BBQ theme or keep refreshments light with lemonade and ice cream. 

Beverages: Root beer floats (both alcoholic and nonalcoholic), as well as some nice cold beer, should do the trick. 

Activities: Face off against your coworkers in this miniature sporting event. And don’t forget to hand out miniature trophies during a ceremony at the end! 

Why it works: It’s like giving your coworkers a vacation without having to pack a bag. 

Setting: If you’re lucky enough to be near a beach, definitely host it there. But if not, any indoor venue with sand (like indoor volleyball courts) will do. 

Decor: Tropical florals, grass table skirts, pink flamingos, and leis. 

Food: Serve Hawaiin BBQ and fresh Poke Bowls. 

Beverages: Anything made with pineapple and rum would be appropriate. 

Activities: Hire professional Hawaiin performers or just have a regular old dance party by yourselves. 

11. Dance Through the Decades

Why it works: If you can’t choose just one decade, why not have all of them? 

Setting: A neutral space that you can decorate with memorabilia from the ’50s to the early 2000s works well. 

Decor: Go crazy with decor from the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s! To keep everything cohesive, try to pick 1-2 primary theme colors and find decade decor that matches that. 

Food: Since this theme incorporates a lot of different trends, you can mix and match your food options, although classic American fare covers all the bases. 

Beverages: Anything from old-fashioned milkshakes to absinthe will do. 

Activities: Dance the night away with the greatest hits from all the decades and encourage guests to dress up as their favorite era. Make sure you have a costume contest too. 

12. Hollywood 

Why it works: Most people love movies and would also love the chance to be treated like a star. 

Setting: Rent out a local movie theatre, gala space, or anywhere you can roll out a red carpet. 

Decor: You can either use the Golden Age as your inspiration (with plenty of gold and silver decor) or Black & White. 

Food: Popcorn and movie theatre candy for light snacks or, for a more decadent option, go all out with steaks and lobster. 

Beverages: Champagne, wines, and sodas (for any children who attend). 

Activities: Some films will allow you and your event to host a private advanced screening of an upcoming new release. But really any movie will do! You can also have a step and repeat at your party entrance so everyone walking in gets a taste of that movie star experience. You can even go a step further and hire someone to get guests’ handprints in wet cement outside of your building, Chinese Theatre style. 

13. Catered Brunch

Why it works: You can incorporate it into your normal workday without being disruptive or worrying about low attendance rates. 

Setting: Your very own office on a Friday or after a busy quarter ends. 

Decor: Striped paper straws for your mimosas, fresh fruit and citrus garlands, and checkered tablecloths. 

Food: Omelet stations, pancakes, waffles, yogurt with mix-ins, and bagels. 

Beverages: Fresh squeezed juices and coffees. 

Activities: Setting up a full buffet brunch makes it easy to have a formal sit-down meal or a free period where attendees can hang out and still get some work done. 

14. Superlative Awards

Why it works: It’s fun to pick on your coworkers, and it shows how close you all really are. 

Setting: Steakhouses and black-tie venues are both a great option for this corporate event theme. 

Decor: Like any good awards show, you should have classy decor complete with a red carpet, white linen napkins, and dramatic fabric drapings. 

Food: Most fancy award presentations include formal dining, but you can also poll your office and see what type of food they’d most enjoy. It is a celebration of them after all! 

Beverages: Cocktails, wine, and liquor are all good for this formal to semi-formal style event. 

Activities: Have your audience vote and award teammates for a whole range of funny and serious awards, including “most likely to run five minutes behind” and “best office decor.” 

15. Casino Night

Why it works: Whether or not you play for money, it’s still a very exciting form of entertainment. 

Setting: Any event space that can fit a large number of round tables and transform into a casino hall for the night will do. 

Decor: Bring in serious electric Vegas vibes using neon lights and water fountains or go full-on flapper with speakeasy-style dark and moody palettes. 

Food: Finger foods (like mini BLTs, ceviche, and caviar) served via tray pass.

Beverages: Good whiskey or scotch on the rocks will likely be a big hit. 

Activities: A lot of Casino Night events loop in a charity so other activities, such as silent auctions or a basket raffle, could also help raise funds for a good cause. 

16. Outerspace 

Why it works: It’s a little out-there as a theme (pun intended), but most science or sci-fi lovers will love it. 

Setting: This theme works for any space, but is especially effective for venues like laser tag or indoor putt-putt, where glow in the dark features play a big role in the decor. But, if you have the budget, consider renting out a science center with great views and telescopes they’ll let you try out. 

Decor: Hang various model planets, alien spaceships, and stars from the ceiling. Choose funky purple and green glitter fabrics for banisters. And don’t forget the smog machine! 

Food: Serve astronaut ice cream and basically anything you can make look cool with food coloring.  

Beverages: Cocktails that smoke or catch fire are super fun and unexpected additions to an out of this world soiree. 

Activities: Have your very own Space Jam dance party or hire a telescope for stargazing. 

17. Geeky Fandom 

Why it works: People love bonding over shared hobbies and entertainment and tend to go all out. 

Setting: Any event venue will do, but if the franchise you’ve chosen has any significant features (like a telephone booth for Doctor Who or a giant gothic dining hall for Harry Potter), look for those key identifiers in your space. 

Decor: It’s mostly already done for you by other fans whose parties they’ve shared online! Just follow the show’s main color schemes and use fun insider references to inform your decision making–and you’ll be good to go. 

Food: Anything from cookies to sandwiches can be made with character faces, show logos, or deep cut symbology. 

Beverages: You can also pull recipes from the show, like Harry Potter’s butterbeer. 

Activities: Themed board games, fandom trivia competitions, themed photo booths, and–of course–a homemade costume contest. 

18. Wild, Wild West

Why it works: It’s a relaxed, outdoor option that’s more interesting than a regular picnic and allows for more unique activities. 

Setting: Host your event at an actual ranch, a historical site linked to the history of the era, or even just in someone’s backyard. 

Decor: Hay bales, horseshoes, and ten-gallon hats are all you really need, darlin’. 

Food: Good old fashioned American BBQ, along with other summertime treats like watermelon slices and peach cobbler. 

Beverages: Homemade iced tea and beer go well with these foods. 

Activities: Classic lawn games like horseshoes, cornhole, and bocce ball along with a petting zoo (for the kids), tractor rides, and–if you’re feeling adventurous–a mechanical bull. 

19. Top Chef 

Why it works: Competitive home cooks finally get to show off their skills, and the rest of the audience gets to eat. What’s not to love about that? 

Setting: A health-certified kitchen or food prep space. 

Decor: Stainless steel counters, special event-only aprons for contestants, and a scoreboard. 

Food: There are lots of ways to run a cooking show-inspired event and what game you choose will determine what you eat. Make sure you have some actual catering, too, since contestants will be making single dishes at a time. 

Beverages: Anything that pairs well with the food challenge will do. 

Activities: Guests can either sign up to be a contestant, a judge, or an audience member. Just make sure you serve an actual meal afterward since everyone will probably be hungry! 

20. Around the World

Why it works: For international companies, you’ll have the option to showcase regions where your other offices are located so guests can have a greater connection to them. 

Setting: An event venue that allows you to divide the main area into segments to represent the chosen cities or countries. 

Decor: Cityscapes like the Eiffel tower or NYC can easily be replicated with cardboard. But any internationally inspired flavor works! 

Food: Because your guests are sampling dishes from a variety of influences, serve food as small bites so everyone can try each menu item. 

Beverages: With so many other variables at play, keep things simple by serving wine and beer. 

Activities: There are lots of hired entertainment options available, like salsa dancers or classic Mimes. 

21. Circus, Circus

Why it works: This is one very family-friendly corporate event theme that all ages can enjoy. 

Setting: Consider renting a large outdoor tent. Or, if that’s not practice, drape matching fabrics on the ceiling of the venue to mimic the interior of a circus tent. 

Decor: Red and white striped fabrics and imagery of jugglers, magicians, and clowns. 

Food: Popcorn, peanuts, ice cream, corn dogs–really anything you’d find at a circus. 

Beverages: Lemonade, soda, and beer. 

Activities: Hire live performers and play some carnival games. 

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22. escape the room .

Why it works: The company you work with will do everything for you, making the whole planning process relatively stress-free. 

Setting: Escape rooms come fully ready to use–or you can hire them to deck out your chosen space.  

Decor: Great news–the escape room company you work with will do it all for you! 

Food: Food is not expected (or even desired) during the escape room experience, but you could always host a pizza party before or after. 

Beverages: Beer and wine should be used to celebrate the teams who solve the puzzle. 

Activities: Solve a mystery using teamwork with your coworkers. 

23. Happy Hour

Why it works: It’s casual, laid-back, and simple, which is just the kind of event most of us have the energy for after a long day at work anyway. 

Setting: Happy hour can take place right in your office after hours or at a traditional restaurant/bar space.  

Decor: Simple color-coordinated balloons, ribbons, tablecloths, and glassware add a little something special, but they’re certainly not required. 

Food: Pizza, chicken tenders, and any other carbohydrate-rich finger food will go well with this theme. 

Beverages: Cocktails will be the main attraction of the event as a whole, as will the wine and beer selection. Choose locally sourced vinos or perhaps some cocktails named after inside jokes to make things a little more unique. 

Activities: Cheap or free drinks and karaoke should be all the entertainment they need. 

24. Comedy Night

Why it works: Everyone loves comedy–especially if you can score tickets to a show featuring a celeb. 

Setting: Any theatre or performing arts venue that regularly showcases stand-ups, improv troupes, and sketch teams. 

Decor: Your venue has it covered! 

Food: A lot of theaters will serve drinks but they rarely have food, so make sure you book a great neighboring restaurant so event goers can walk over after their meal. 

Beverages: See if the venue will provide drink tickets for large groups or if they’d allow you to bring your own beer and wine in. 

Activities: Enjoy talented comedy performers and have a good, hard laugh. 

25. Food Truck Roundup 

Why it works: Guests can eat a variety of cool foods they won’t find all together anywhere else while also mixing and mingling outdoors. 

Setting: Open-air parking lots, parks, or your business’s green lawn campus are all easy spots for food trucks to drive up to and set up shop. 

Decor: If you can, hang paper lanterns, set up table cloths with centerpieces, and spread out picnic blankets, pillows, and fold-up chairs for seating. And don’t forget the citronella candles! 

Food: You can invite any variety of food truck to your party. Everything from freshly rolled sushi to vegan chicken and waffles is being served by these restaurants on wheels. 

Beverages: Most food trucks will serve specialty beverages but be prepared with your own water station, as well. 

Activities: Since food is the main focus, you don’t need much else. But you can include a live band, some local craft or candle vendors, and selfie stations for additional fun.

More helpful guides to create great corporate events

The Ultimate Party Planning Checklist Template 5 Ways to Keep Catering Costs Down at Your Next Event 30 Tips for Remarkable Corporate Event Planning Ideas for Creating Better Networking at Events

Millions of successful corporate events start here

Still need answers about corporate event themes.

The best part themes can be seasonal, related to current events or holidays, creative, or simply high quality. The most important factors in making a good party theme are that the event is appropriate and the host puts in the effort to make it special.

Themes help get people excited about an event and create a sense of community among attendees. Not to mention the fact that a theme truly sets an event apart from everyday life.

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Tax Planning Techniques for Enhancing Business Value

In today's competitive business landscape, maximizing after-tax profits is vital for sustainable growth and success. One often overlooked yet critical aspect of achieving this goal is effective tax planning. By adopting strategic techniques, businesses can substantially reduce their tax liabilities, optimize cash flow, and release valuable resources for investment. However, with an ever-changing regulatory environment and complex tax codes, traversing the most effective strategies can be intimidating. As we explore the various techniques for enhancing business value through tax planning, one question remains: what opportunities are you missing, and how can you tap into them to propel your business forward?

Table of Contents

Minimizing Tax Liabilities Strategically

By adopting a proactive and informed approach to tax planning, individuals and businesses can minimize their tax liabilities strategically, thereby preserving a greater portion of their hard-earned income. A key component of this approach is tax shielding, which involves leveraging available deductions and credits to reduce taxable income. This can include depreciating assets, claiming business expenses, and leveraging tax-loss harvesting opportunities. To optimize the effectiveness of tax shielding, it is crucial to conduct a thorough risk assessment, identifying potential tax liabilities and developing strategies to mitigate them. This includes staying up-to-date with changing tax laws and regulations, as well as maintaining accurate and detailed financial records. By integrating tax shielding and risk assessment into their overall tax planning strategy, individuals and businesses can minimize their tax liabilities and optimize their financial performance. This proactive approach enables them to make informed decisions, reduce uncertainty, and ultimately, preserve more of their hard-earned income.

Optimizing Entity Structure Benefits

In addition to leveraging tax shielding and risk assessment strategies, individuals and businesses can further minimize their tax liabilities by optimizing their entity structure, which can have a profound impact on their overall tax efficiency. A well-planned entity structure can help reduce tax burdens, enhance cash flow, and increase business value. Entity formation is a critical aspect of this process, as it determines the type of taxes owed, the level of liability protection, and the ease of ownership transfer. For instance, converting from a C corporation to an S corporation or a limited liability company (LLC) can provide significant tax benefits. Ownership restructuring is another key consideration, as it can help minimize taxes on inter-entity transactions and optimize tax deductions. By optimizing entity structure, businesses can also improve their financial transparency, simplify compliance, and enhance their overall competitiveness. By working with a tax professional, businesses can identify the most advantageous entity structure and ownership arrangement to achieve their goals and increase their value.

Leveraging Loss Harvesting Opportunities

A key tax planning technique that can help individuals and businesses offset capital gains is leveraging loss harvesting opportunities, which involves strategically realizing losses to counterbalance gains and minimize tax liabilities. This approach enables taxpayers to reduce their tax burden by offsetting gains from profitable investments with losses from underperforming ones. By doing so, they can minimize their capital gains tax liability and potentially employ loss carrybacks to recoup taxes paid in previous years.

Effective loss harvesting also involves investment shielding, where taxpayers hold onto profitable investments and sell underperforming ones to realize losses. This strategy helps to reduce the tax impact of profitable investments while concurrently generating losses that can be used to offset future gains. Additionally, taxpayers can take advantage of loss carrybacks to offset gains from previous years, providing additional tax relief. By leveraging loss harvesting opportunities, individuals and businesses can optimize their tax strategy, minimize tax liabilities, and ultimately enhance their overall business value.

Effective Asset Depreciation Methods

When implementing effective asset depreciation methods, it is vital to take into account the nuances of depreciation schedules, as they profoundly impact the timing and amount of deductions. Proper asset classification is also pivotal, as it determines the applicable depreciation rates and recovery periods. By strategically leveraging bonus depreciation benefits, taxpayers can further optimize their depreciation deductions and minimize their tax liabilities.

Depreciation Schedules Matter

How can businesses accurately allocate the cost of assets over their useful lives, thereby minimizing tax liabilities and maximizing financial performance? A well-planned depreciation strategy is vital to achieving this goal. Effective asset tracking is critical in developing a depreciation schedule that accurately reflects the asset's useful life.

A depreciation schedule matters because it enables businesses to spread the cost of an asset over its useful life, reducing taxable income and subsequently, tax liabilities. A well-structured depreciation schedule can also help businesses:

• Identify and prioritize assets that require replacement or upgrading
• Optimize asset utilization and allocation
• Make informed decisions on asset disposal or acquisition
• Enhance financial reporting and transparency
• Support compliance with tax laws and regulations

Asset Classification Counts

Three primary asset classification methods – Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System (MACRS), Straight-Line Method, and Units-of-Production Method – form the foundation of effective asset depreciation, as each method yields distinct benefits and applicability based on asset type and business context. Accurate asset classification is vital, as it directly affects depreciation schedules and ultimately, taxable income. A well-implemented asset tracking system allows businesses to categorize assets correctly, facilitating compliance with tax regulations and optimizing depreciation benefits.

Classification systems, such as the General Asset Account (GAA) and the Asset Depreciation Range (ADR), provide a framework for categorizing assets into distinct classes, each with its own depreciation schedule. Proper asset classification facilitates the selection of the most suitable depreciation method, maximizing tax savings and minimizing audit risks. By adopting a systematic approach to asset classification, businesses can verify that their asset depreciation strategies align with their overall tax planning goals, ultimately enhancing business value.

Bonus Depreciation Benefits

Beyond accurate asset classification, bonus depreciation benefits offer an additional layer of tax savings, allowing businesses to claim a significant portion of an asset's cost in the year of acquisition. This strategy enables companies to accelerate depreciation deductions, resulting in substantial tax savings and increased cash flow. By leveraging bonus depreciation benefits, businesses can reinvest these savings into growth initiatives, fueling business expansion and competitiveness.

To optimize bonus depreciation benefits, businesses should consider the following:

• Identify eligible assets : Qualifying assets include tangible property, such as machinery, equipment, and software, as well as certain types of building improvements.
• Determine the bonus depreciation percentage : The percentage of the asset's cost that can be depreciated in the first year, currently set at 100% for certain assets.
• Calculate the depreciation deduction : Apply the bonus depreciation percentage to the asset's cost to determine the deductible amount.
• Claim the deduction : Report the depreciation deduction on the company's tax return, ensuring compliance with relevant tax laws and regulations.
• Consider state and local tax implications : Bonus depreciation benefits may vary at the state and local level, so it's crucial to understand the specific rules and regulations in your jurisdiction.

Reducing Taxes Through Philanthropy

Philanthropic contributions can provide a valuable opportunity for individuals and businesses to reduce their tax liability while supporting worthy causes. By aligning charitable intentions with philanthropic strategies, taxpayers can optimize their giving while minimizing their tax burden. One effective approach is to donate appreciated assets, such as stocks or real estate, to charity. This can provide a double benefit, as the donor can claim a charitable deduction for the fair market value of the asset, while avoiding capital gains tax on the appreciation.

Additionally, businesses can leverage charitable contributions as a means of reducing taxable income. By donating a portion of their profits to qualified organizations, businesses can reduce their tax liability while supporting significant social causes. It is crucial to maintain accurate records and documentation to substantiate charitable contributions, as the IRS requires strict compliance with reporting and disclosure requirements. By integrating philanthropy into their tax planning strategy, individuals and businesses can make a positive impact on their communities while minimizing their tax liability.

Deferring Income and Gains

When implementing tax planning strategies, deferring income and gains can be an effective approach to minimizing tax liability. This can be achieved through various techniques, including accelerating deferred income, deferring capital gains, and shifting tax liability. By strategically managing the timing of income recognition and gain realization, individuals and businesses can optimize their tax position and reduce their overall tax burden.

Accelerate Deferred Income

By accelerating deferred income, taxpayers can strategically manage their tax liabilities by recognizing income in a lower-tax year, thereby reducing their overall tax burden. This technique is particularly effective when combined with income forecasting, which enables businesses to anticipate and prepare for fluctuations in revenue. By accelerating deferred income, businesses can take advantage of lower tax rates, reducing their liability and increasing their bottom line.

To effectively accelerate deferred income, consider the following strategies:

• Identify opportunities to recognize income in a lower-tax year, such as accelerating revenue recognition or billing clients earlier.
• Analyze the company's income forecast to determine the best timing for recognizing deferred income.
• Consider the impact of revenue acceleration on cash flow and working capital requirements.
• Evaluate the tax implications of accelerating deferred income on the company's overall tax strategy.
• Consult with a tax professional to confirm compliance with all relevant tax laws and regulations.

Defer Capital Gains

Deferring capital gains can be a highly effective tax planning strategy, as it enables taxpayers to postpone the recognition of income and gains, thereby reducing their current tax liability and freeing up resources for investment or other business purposes. This approach allows businesses to manage their cash flow more efficiently, as they can delay paying taxes on capital gains until a later period. One common technique used to defer capital gains is the installment sales method, which permits taxpayers to recognize gain over time as payments are received. This approach can be particularly useful for businesses with long-term contracts or asset sales. Additionally, businesses may be eligible for capital exemptions, which can further reduce their tax liability. By leveraging these strategies, businesses can optimize their tax position and enhance their overall value. Effective tax planning, including deferring capital gains, is crucial for businesses seeking to boost their profitability and competitiveness.

Shift Tax Liability

In addition to deferring capital gains, another key strategy for tax optimization involves shifting tax liability through the strategic timing of income and gain recognition, thereby minimizing tax exposure in high-income years. This approach enables businesses to optimize their tax efficiency by managing their income and gains to fall within lower tax brackets. By doing so, companies can reduce their overall tax liability, freeing up resources for reinvestment and growth.

To achieve effective liability shifting, businesses can employ the following strategies:

• Accelerate deductions : Claim deductions in high-income years to reduce taxable income and minimize tax liability.
• Defer income : Delay income recognition until lower-income years to reduce tax exposure.
• Optimize accounting methods : Select accounting methods that align with business goals, such as cash or accrual methods, to manage income and gain recognition.
• Utilize tax credits : Leverage tax credits, such as research and development credits, to offset tax liability.
• Consider entity structuring : Optimize business entity structures, such as partnerships or S corporations, to minimize tax liability and maximize tax efficiency.

Implementing Credits and Incentives

Available credits and incentives can substantially reduce a taxpayer's liability, making it vital to identify and claim these benefits in a timely and accurate manner. By leveraging these opportunities, businesses can optimize their tax strategy and enhance their overall value.

Research Initiatives and Government Programs are key areas to explore for credits and incentives. For instance, the Research and Development (R&D) tax credit can provide significant benefits for businesses investing in innovation and technological advancements. Similarly, government programs such as the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs offer funding opportunities for small businesses engaged in research and development activities. Additionally, tax credits for energy-efficient improvements, historic preservation, and employment incentives can also provide substantial benefits. It is imperative to stay informed about available credits and incentives and to consult with a tax professional to guarantee accurate and timely claims. By doing so, businesses can optimize their tax savings and invest in growth initiatives.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the tax implications of selling a business versus passing it down?.

When deciding between selling a business and passing it down, it's essential to weigh the tax implications of each succession strategy, as they can profoundly impact the family legacy, with differing capital gains and estate tax consequences.

How Do I Balance Tax Planning With Meeting Business Cash Flow Needs?

To balance tax planning with meeting business cash flow needs, entrepreneurs should integrate tax-efficient strategies into their financial projections, ensuring alignment with cash flow requirements and optimizing liquidity while minimizing tax liabilities.

Can I Deduct Business Expenses Paid Using Personal Funds?

As a business owner, you may deduct business expenses paid using personal funds, but it's essential to maintain accurate expense tracking to substantiate deductions and avoid personal liability, ensuring proper documentation to support claims.

Are There Tax Benefits to Franchising My Business Model?

Franchising a business model can provide tax benefits, as franchise royalty fees may be deductible as business expenses, promoting brand consistency across locations while reducing taxable income, ultimately increasing after-tax returns.

How Does Tax Planning Impact My Business's Creditworthiness?

A company's creditworthiness is heavily influenced by its financial health, which is reflected in its credit score. Effective tax planning strategies can positively impact financial health by minimizing liabilities, optimizing cash flow, and ensuring compliance.