Board meeting preparation involves a lot of reading, taking notes, thinking/contemplating, and seeking out and asking for additional information. This improves the efficiency of the board and allows them to spend more time focusing on the strategy and less time on procedural issues. This also helps reduce the level of frustration that directors feel when they attend board meetings that are long and filled with a lot of information, and do not produce clear actions.
The best way to prepare for a meeting of the board of directors is to read the agenda in advance, and pay special attention to the most important items. Go through the agenda and rank each item based on the importance, urgency and alignment with your organization’s strategic goals. Inquire from the board chair or CEO to further refine and finish these top priorities. Create the agenda for the meeting so that crucial issues are discussed first, and in depth. This ensures that the board can take away the meeting with a clear understanding of the important decisions that need to be taken.
Additionally, make sure to include updates on action tasks which were given at the previous board meeting, and to verify that the necessary information was provided by the presenters. Finally, it’s important to confirm that everyone will have access to the meeting via video, phone or other online platform. Send the board packet and agenda to all participants once they’ve been drafted. Ideally, this should be done one week prior to the meeting so that participants have enough time to look over and request changes.
