This article has three sample templates to help improve your project meetings. If you find these suggestions useful, be sure to download a free copy of Collaborative Project Management: A Handbook for more practical meeting tips. Enjoy!

Project Management Meeting Template #1 – Project Sponsor

Very good sponsors are really busy, so you need to make good use of the time, to gain respect (and thus the help). Here is a sample agenda you as a new Project Manager might consider using with your Project Sponsor:

1. Review and agree agenda (i.e. agree the desired meeting outcome).
2. Update on Progress to Agreed Goals, ideally using pre-agreed dashboards, milestones, budgets, metrics, etc.
3. Review, discuss and resolve any open risks, issues or change requests.
4. Review Pending Decisions.
5. AOB.
6. Other Feedback for the Project Manager?
7. Summarize the meeting outcomes.

Project Management Meeting Template #2 – Project Team

You do not want to have project meetings for the sake of meetings – so you do need to be careful with how these are run. Here is a sample agenda you can use with your team.

1. Review and agree agenda (i.e. the desired meeting outcome) with the team.
2. Review, discuss and resolve (in so far as possible) any open issues  (be careful that the issues are “real issues”).
3. Look at upcoming tasks for next week.
4. Project process and approach – any adjustments needed?
5. (Time Permitting) Look at tasks achieved last week or at least the highlight tasks from last week.
6. AOB.
7. Summarize the meeting outcomes.

 Project Management Meeting Template #3 – Problem Solving / Creative

1. Brainstorm in a Blue sky manner all the possibilities (where no critique is allowed – only questions to clarify).
2. Enter into a robust but respectful set of Conversations that have plenty of healthy Critique and lots of Constructive Conflict.
3. Discuss lots and with as much consensus as possible make good Decisions (including a mechanism to check the outcome).

Editor’s Note: This article is an excerpt from our free book, Collaborative Project Management: A Handbook.