A board meeting structure that is tailored to your company’s needs can help facilitate productive discussions as well as ensure that all key elements are documented. There are certain conventions that you can follow however, it’s equally important to be open and flexible to any changes.

Begin the board meeting with a call to order and an examination of the agenda. The chair of the board will ask whether there are any modifications or additions that need to be made. After all items are agreed on, the chair moves to accept the agenda for board discussion and action.

The board considers reports from various committees and departments that need to be presented. The discussion usually includes progress updates, budgets and financial statements review of proposals, and more. Limit the number of topics related to reports to avoid the meeting from becoming sluggish with administrative issues.

The chair helps the board members come to a consensus to discuss and reach a consensus on solutions. The chair will adjourn a board meeting when there is no items to discuss or as the time for the meeting ends approaches.

Directors can be distracted by new topics for discussion that arise at the time of the board meeting which can lead to important discussions being slowed down. To avoid this it is possible to include a “parking lot” item on the agenda, in which directors can discuss random topics that should be discussed but are not the top priority. The board can then discuss the topics to decide if they should be considered further or be added to the next agenda.

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