Photo by plantoo47 (Flickr), Licensed under CC BY 2.0

We've all been there: We've walked out of business meetings knowing we're never going to get that time back, wondering why we were invited and what it was that we accomplished. Often, this lack of productivity in a meeting is not the result of what happened during the meeting but rather what didn't happen beforehand: meeting preparation. Planning an effective meeting is as important as conducting one. Here are seven more reasons to create meeting agendas.

A successful, motivating project start is indispensable. That’s why experienced project directors invite their team members at the beginning of the project to a kick-off meeting.

A kick-off meeting is a meeting of all relevant project members which also marks the official start of the project or of a new, important project phase. On this occasion, the team members often meet for the very first time in person. This is particularly important in virtual or distributed teams, because the team members might not meet very often during the implementation phase. 

Usually, the kick-off meeting takes place after the project planning and before the implementation phase begins.