Plan a team meeting that earns the time of the people attending. Design it around decisions, problem-solving, and coordination; move one-way updates to pre-work unless discussion is necessary. Meeting purpose and desired outcome: [MEETING PURPOSE] Attendees, roles, and decision authority: [ATTENDEES AND AUTHORITY] Topics, facts, and decisions needed: [TOPICS AND DECISIONS] Constraints and current risks: [CONSTRAINTS AND RISKS] Previous actions or relevant context: [PRIOR CONTEXT] Produce a complete meeting kit for a [MEETING LENGTH] meeting. Include: a one-sentence outcome; a participant list with the role each person plays; pre-read or asynchronous updates, with who provides each one; a timed agenda; facilitator language for opening and transitions; the exact decision question for each discussion item; and a live decision-and-action log template. For every agenda item, state whether the purpose is decide, solve, coordinate, or inform. Give “inform” items no live discussion time unless an exception is justified. Use timeboxes, name the decision owner, and state what happens if the group cannot decide. Include a final five-minute review that confirms decisions, actions, owners, deadlines, dependencies, and how progress will be checked. Also draft a 120-180 word meeting invitation and a 100-word follow-up recap template. Keep the invitation clear about what attendees must prepare and what will be decided. Do not invent attendee authority, past commitments, metrics, or project facts. Do not use the meeting to resolve sensitive performance, HR, or interpersonal issues that require a separate private process. Before answering, check that the total agenda time equals [MEETING LENGTH] and that every live item has a stated output. Ask up to 3 clarifying questions only if a required input is missing.
Fill in
| Placeholder | What to enter | Example |
|---|---|---|
| [MEETING PURPOSE] | State the outcome the meeting must achieve and why it needs a live discussion. | Agree on the launch scope for the customer onboarding redesign and assign owners for unresolved dependencies. |
| [ATTENDEES AND AUTHORITY] | List attendees, their roles, relevant knowledge, and who can make each decision. | Product lead decides scope; design lead owns UX feasibility; engineering lead owns technical estimates; support manager owns readiness. |
| [TOPICS AND DECISIONS] | List the facts to review, questions to solve, and decisions or coordination items needed. | Decide which two onboarding flows ship in October, resolve analytics dependency, and coordinate support training. |
| [CONSTRAINTS AND RISKS] | Enter time limits, deadlines, dependencies, disagreements, and risks affecting the meeting. | October 7 code freeze; analytics event work may take five days; legal review is needed for one new consent screen. |
| [PRIOR CONTEXT] | Paste previous actions, recent updates, or decisions that the group needs to know. | Last week, the team agreed to test three flows but did not select a launch scope. |
| [MEETING LENGTH] | Enter the available meeting duration, such as 30, 45, or 60 minutes. | 45 minutes |
How to use
- Write the desired decision before building the agenda; if there is no decision or coordination need, send an asynchronous update instead.
- Paste the prompt with named decision owners and evidence links or summaries, then send the pre-work before the meeting.
- During the meeting, keep the action log visible and record only commitments with an owner and date.
- Follow up with: “Convert these meeting notes into a recap that distinguishes decisions, actions, parking-lot items, and unresolved risks.”
Variations
Weekly standup
Use this for a short recurring coordination meeting.
Design a [MEETING LENGTH] weekly team standup for [TEAM]. This week’s priorities are [PRIORITIES], blockers are [BLOCKERS], and attendees are [ATTENDEES]. Produce a timed agenda that replaces round-robin status updates with review of work at risk, dependencies, decisions, and commitments. Include a shared action log template and a short async-update format to collect before the meeting. Make every live item end in a decision, owner, or next step. Do not invent priorities or blockers.
Decision meeting
Use this when leaders must choose between defined options.
Prepare a decision meeting for [DECISION]. Options are [OPTIONS]. Decision criteria are [CRITERIA]. Attendees and authority are [ATTENDEES AND AUTHORITY]. Evidence and unknowns are [EVIDENCE]. Create a 45-minute agenda, a comparison table, discussion questions, and a decision record including owner, rationale, dissent, risks, and revisit trigger. Keep fact, assumption, and opinion separate. Do not recommend an option without showing how it performs against the agreed criteria.
Project kickoff
Use this when a cross-functional project is starting.
Create a project-kickoff meeting plan for [PROJECT]. Desired outcome: [OUTCOME]. Team and roles: [TEAM]. Scope, constraints, and deadline: [SCOPE AND CONSTRAINTS]. Produce a 60-minute agenda, pre-read checklist, opening script, questions to clarify roles and dependencies, a draft responsibility matrix, and an action recap template. Ensure the meeting defines success measures, decision path, risks, and next milestone. Do not assume resources, dates, or approvals that were not provided.
Tips
- Make the agenda’s first line an outcome that can be observed after the meeting, such as a selected scope or assigned owner, not “discuss project.”
- Send context before the meeting and reserve the live time for disagreements, tradeoffs, and decisions that benefit from the people in the room.
- Assign one person to own the decision record; a meeting has not produced a decision until its owner, rationale, and next action are captured.
- Use a parking lot for important but off-purpose questions, then give each item an owner and a path rather than promising to revisit it vaguely.
FAQ
How many topics should a team meeting cover?
Cover only the topics that fit the timebox and have a live output. A 30-minute meeting often supports one meaningful decision plus a small amount of coordination.
What should be in a meeting recap?
Record decisions, actions, owners, dates, dependencies, and unresolved items. Do not substitute a long narrative for commitments.
Can AI facilitate the meeting?
It can create an agenda, questions, and notes template, but a human facilitator should manage participation, context, and decisions in the room.