The way your board conducts its meetings is a key factor in the productivity and effectiveness of your board. To maximize the impact of each meeting, create and follow clear guidelines and procedures and ensure that all board members understand what they must do. This means establishing clear rules for making decisions, ensuring that you adhere to voting guidelines and clearly documenting decisions using accurate minutes.
A productive board meeting begins with a well-planned agenda. Give time limits to each agenda item, and consider using visual tools such as countdown timers to enable everyone to manage their time efficiently. Do not bore your board members with long reports and updates. Instead, you should place the most important issues at the top of the agenda.
Be clear about how your board decides. Consensus-based discussions are ideal, but formal voting is acceptable when necessary. In any case, ensure that everyone is aware of the process used to make decisions prior to every meeting to ensure there are no surprises.
Minutes that are precise are an essential component to the success of any board meeting, and a competent board secretary is essential. Be sure boardroomate.com/how-to-improve-board-performance/ that the person who is responsible for recording minutes has sufficient training and is a dedicated member of your board of directors. The secretary of the board should take notes on all pertinent topics including important information from the committee reports and officer reports. You must then accurately and promptly summarize all decisions taken at the meeting, and assign responsibilities to follow-up and action items.