Board meetings can take a lot of duration and require you spend most of time reading reports or analyzing them. Depending on the way you conduct your board meetings, it is possible that there is little time to make actual decisions.

Making the most of your board meetings requires structure and discipline. This means making an agenda, creating the meeting space and disseminating relevant materials prior to the meeting. This will allow your board members to look up opinions and prepare for the meeting, and ask questions. Then, when the discussion begins, they show up with a good level of knowledge and confidence that they are contributing to the final outcome.

The process of running the board meeting begins by introducing the officer to the attendees. The chair then addresses new, old and other matters in a consecutive order. The board’s previous business consists of items that have been previously discussed and either accepted or rejected. New business is anything that the board hasn’t discussed before and is presently weighing for approval. Other business is for not scheduled matters such as appointing an advisory committee or announcing appointment of directors.

Once the discussion is concluded the chairman will put all motions up for an election. This includes amending the articles of incorporation, authorizing certain transactions, and ratifying decisions made by directors. This involves deciding on strategy, and approving action plans. To help your board of directors decide on their strategy, it is important to establish KPI goals his response that are quantifiable and aligned with the corporate goal. These KPIs will be used to determine the effectiveness of any strategy that your board of directors is considering.