11 Meeting Templates for Every Stage of a Project

Meeting agenda templates for all your project meetings — from the brainstorming stage all the way to the post-project reflection

Published in

Fellow.app

6 min readFeb 4, 2022

Running a project often involves organizing a lot of meetings. Each of these meetings is a little different with different purposes and outcomes. Using a meeting template for each of these meetings can help provide structure and get the most out of meetings at every stage of a project.

Once you have a set of templates that you like to use, use these templates during every project cycle to build consistency and to stay organized.

We’ve compiled 11 different meeting agenda templates created by the Fellow team to help at every stage of a project.

Brainstorming
Proposal
Kickoff
Requirements
Implementation
Development Checkpoint
Design Checkpoint
Check-in
Status
Reflection
Retrospective

⭐️ Fun fact: We built a meeting notes app where you can create and customize your own project meeting templates!

Brainstorming

Facilitate a brainstorming meeting to promote collaboration and innovation.

Goals: What’s our main objective?
Ground rules: Meeting etiquette everyone should follow
Prompts: Questions to inspire new ideas and solutions
Brainstorming: Write down individual ideas and go around the room explaining them
Voting: What were your favorite ideas + why?
Action Items: What came out of this meeting? What are your next steps?

Proposal

Use a proposal meeting to provide background info on your project, discuss budgets and timelines, and outline the steps you will take to execute it.

Executive summary: Capture the attention of your audience and get them excited about the project you’re proposing. This is essentially the “elevator pitch” for the project life cycle. It should be short and to the point.
Project background: Explain when this issue started, its current state and how your project will be the ideal solution.
Project approach: Define the project management methodology, tools, and governance.
Budget and timeline: Make a rough estimate of how long this job will take to complete. Include some milestones that will let you know if the project is on track once they have been met.
Decision-makers: Determine which internal stakeholders will be in charge of the project.
Communication plan: How do we intend to update each other and stay informed at different stages of the project?
Additional information: Use this section as an appendix to include technical documents or statistics.

Kickoff

Schedule a project kickoff to lay the foundation for a successful project and ensure that everyone is on the same page.

Background: High-level overview/summary of the project
Purpose: What is the project’s mission statement? What are we aiming to accomplish?
Scope: Get into the scope details: specific activities, deliverables, and timelines
Timeline: Build a roadmap: from project kick-off to completion
Roles: Discuss and visualize project roles and assignments
Questions: Clarify misunderstandings and address other important items/concerns

Requirements

Project requirements checkpoints can help ensure that the business requirements for the project have been identified and completed.

Requirements: What “requirements” tasks have been completed?
Issues: Are there any open issues?
Needs: Where are we going to make this announcement?
Next Phase: List the project’s next steps and identify any roadblocks

Implementation

Schedule a project implementation checkpoint to ensure that all implementation requirements for the project have been completed.

Implementation: What “implementation” tasks have been completed?
Issues: Are there any open implementation issues? How will these issues be resolved?
Next Phase: List the project’s next steps and identify any roadblocks

Design Checkpoint

Use this project checkpoint to ensure that all design requirements for the project have been completed.

Design: What “design” tasks have been completed?
Requirements: Does the design meet the established requirements?
Issues: Are there any open design issues? How will these issues be resolved?
Design functionality: Does the design function as expected?
Next Phase: List the project’s next steps and identify any roadblocks

Development Checkpoint

Ensure all development requirements for the projects have been completed.

Development: What “development and testing” tasks have been completed?
Performance: Is everything performing as expected?
Issues: Are there any open development issues? How will these issues be resolved?
Next Phase: List the project’s next steps and identify any roadblocks

Check-in

Check-in meetings help teams provide updates on current projects and challenges, and uncover potential issues as they arise. It also help with cross-functional project alignment.

Small wins: What is going well? Anything you have accomplished since our last check-in?
Review Past Action Items: Review open action items from past check-in meetings. Discuss the progress on each
Updates: Discuss the overall status of the project and progress on individual objectives
Puzzles: Anything you are stumped on that I can help resolve? Do you need support from anyone on the team?
Questions: Any specific questions about the project?
Action Items: What came out of this meeting? What are your next steps?

Status

Share project updates with shareholders, identify roadblocks, and assign action items during your project status meetings.

Summary: Discuss key updates and the overall project status
Roadblocks: What is preventing us from finishing the project/getting our work done?
Open Action Items: Review and update next steps and deadlines

Reflection

Set up some time to think critically about a recent project or experience.

What?: Describe what happened. What did you pick up on? What aspects jumped out to you?
So What?: Determine the ramifications. Make sense of what you’ve learned. What impact did they have on your team
Now What?: Establish a plan of action. What’s the limit? What activities are reasonable?

Retrospective

Help your team reflect on the learnings, challenges, and outcomes of a completed project.

Quick overview: Project timeline, budget users, and major events.
Learnings: Share what you learned during the project
Things that worked: What should we continue doing/ do again for future projects?
Opportunities: What is one thing that could be done differently next time?
Action Items: What came out of this meeting? What are the next steps?

Looking for more meeting agenda templates?

Check out these other articles:

Or view the entire Fellow meeting template library on our website👇