Governance bodies Steering committee agenda: template and outline
A steering committee agenda passes for an organizational formality. It is in fact what decides what the meeting will be able to settle, and its quality depends less on how it is written than on how far ahead it is circulated. The rule that sums it all up: a successful steering committee is one where nothing is discovered.
Six items, and the time each one deserves.
An hour of committee holds about four decisions. Anything that is not one must be read beforehand, not presented in the meeting.
| Item | Indicative duration | What is expected of it |
|---|---|---|
| Follow-up from the previous committee | 5 minutes | The status of recorded decisions and overdue actions. Not a re-reading, a statement of fact. |
| Project status | 10 minutes | Progress, milestones, budget. Circulated beforehand: the meeting only confirms the reading. |
| Risks and alerts | 10 minutes | What has changed since last time, and what needs a decision today. |
| Decisions | 25 minutes | The core of the meeting. Each item with its named decision-maker and costed options. |
| Items escalated from the project committee | 5 minutes | What the operational body could not settle on its own. |
| Upcoming deadlines | 5 minutes | The milestones of the coming month, and what is expected of each party, the client included. |
SOURCE Outline drawn from orgatypik practice, tested on supervised projects in IT services companies. It can be reused as it stands.
The circulation lead time, and why it changes everything.
An agenda sent the day before is a table of contents. It announces what will be discussed; it lets no one prepare anything. The client sponsor reads it on the train, discovers a budget decision, and does the only reasonable thing in that situation: asks for time to think about it.
The decision is then postponed by a month. Not because it was difficult, but because it was presented too late to someone who had to refer it upward.
Three working days is the workable threshold in most organizations. Any shorter, participants who need to consult someone cannot. Any longer, the project status will have changed between sending and the meeting, unless the data can be consulted continuously.
Decisions are not discovered in the meeting.
A steering committee is not there to inform: it is there to record decisions. Whatever is discovered there is, by construction, whatever will not be settled there. The quality of a steering committee is therefore measured by what was worked on before it.
That assumes something the PDF sent the day before does not allow: that the client has read the same data as you, and early enough to discuss it. Project governance describes the bodies, their rhythm and their agenda. Operational commitment management describes what those bodies hold: what was promised, by whom, by what date, and on what dated proof. One is the framework. The other is the substance.
When the substance is available continuously, the agenda stops being a document to produce: it becomes the short list of what remains to be decided. This is what we call operational commitment management.
In pylotik.
The run-up to the meeting, with no formatting work.
The agenda is made of what remains open
Pending decisions, overdue actions, new risks: they are already in the project, there is nothing to gather.
The data goes with the invitation
The client does not open an attachment: they open the project, as it is at the moment they look at it.
What comes up from the project committee is flagged
An item the operational body could not settle ends up on the agenda of the body that can.
The meeting produces its own minutes
The same screen is used to run the meeting and to record what is decided in it. See steering committee minutes.
Full meeting preparation is covered on steering committee software, and the overall framework on project governance. The tour of the product is on the product page, the contractual modes on the commitment levels.
What we are asked about the agenda.
How far ahead should a steering committee agenda be sent?
Three working days at the very least. Any shorter, a participant who has to consult someone before deciding cannot, which automatically postpones the decision by a month.
What goes into a steering committee agenda?
Six items: follow-up from the previous committee, project status, risks and alerts, decisions to be made, what comes up from the operational committee, and upcoming deadlines. Decisions take half of the time.
Who writes the agenda?
The supplier, usually the director or the project manager, including the items the client wishes to raise. An agenda built one way produces a one-way committee.
Should each item be given a time?
Yes, and the exercise is revealing. An hour of meeting holds about four decisions. If the outline announces eight, you know before going in that half of them will be rushed through at the end of the meeting.
What should be done with an item that is not ready?
Remove it from the agenda rather than leave it there. A decision presented without costed options or an identified decision-maker will not be settled, and it will have used up meeting time.
Can the client add items?
They should. An agenda the client has contributed nothing to usually means they have not read the data beforehand, and the meeting will then be used to inform them rather than to decide.
Going further.
- The steering committee: preparing and running the meeting.
- Committee minutes: what follows the meeting, and who approves them.
- Project governance: bodies, roles, artifacts.
- Operational commitment management: the definition of the category.