Have you noticed how most agendas contain too many topics that make things take longer than they should?

When people prepare for meetings by starting with the agenda, it means they’re only thinking about what to discuss, not what they want to achieve. And, because it’s easy to find a reason to discuss pretty much any topic, this makes the agenda too long and full of non-essentials.

Instead, a much better approach is to prepare using PALM:

And you need all four:

Without the P, you don’t know your end-point. And, as American psychologist David Campbell said:

Without the A, there’s not enough structure. The meeting becomes a free-for-all.

Without the L, meetings overrun and/or are needlessly long. After all, when you say a meeting will last an hour, it does. But when you say it will last “a maximum of an hour”, it’s often less.

Without the M, decisions take longer. And while it might seem a good idea to invite more people, look at the increased number of agreements this means you need:

So, an example would be:

You can see why this works:

• It’s set up to be an output-focused, fast pit-stop; not an indigestible, bloated break.
• It helps ensure the meeting generates actions (the next chapter has more on this).
• People prepare for it better. Did you notice the comment about the pre-reads: “essential for our meeting”. You’re adults having a professional work meeting, not schoolchildren having a chat. People need to respect other attendees’ time, and do the pre-work. I’ve seen people make this point in different ways – one that sticks out is, “If you don’t prepare, don’t come”. So, choose your own approach, but be clear that preparation is a must-do, not a do-if-you-want.