Whether you’re going on a business trip or just have a lot of back-to-back meetings to attend, knowing what’s next on your meeting schedule is important. Creating a meeting itinerary can help you keep track of the agenda items and discussion topics for each meeting, and ensure you get from one meeting to the next.
Here’s what to include in a meeting itinerary for a business trip, business meeting, or any other type of meeting that requires an organized meeting agenda.
What Is a Meeting Itinerary?
A meeting itinerary is essentially the same as a meeting agenda: It’s a list of agenda items and discussion topics for the meeting, often with a specific amount of time set aside for each item so you know how long the meeting is likely to run.
A meeting itinerary is what the facilitator uses to guide the flow of the meeting, and what the note-taker uses to take meeting minutes or notes.
But if you have a lot of meetings in a row, or are on a business trip, you might want to put together a comprehensive meeting itinerary that includes all of your meetings in one place. You can think of it like any other trip itinerary, except the idea is to keep track of the meeting time and location of all of your business meetings.
We’ll look at a few different types of meeting agenda templates so you can choose the one that’s the right fit for your meeting schedule and format.
Why Do You Need a Meeting Itinerary?
A meeting itinerary isn’t just something that’s nice to have when you can find the time and energy to create one. Creating a meeting itinerary is an important part of meeting preparation for team leaders and makes the meeting more engaging for participants.
Here are three reasons to use a meeting agenda or meeting itinerary.
To keep things on track
First, a meeting itinerary helps you keep things on track — before, during, and after the meeting. From identifying the meeting time and place, to setting the time and date for the next meeting, a meeting itinerary helps you set the purpose of the meeting and assign roles and responsibilities to team members.
During the meeting itself, a meeting agenda will tell you which items to focus on, how much time to spend on each item, and how you’ll make decisions as a group.
For example, a brainstorming meeting or scrum meeting will have a different set of expectations compared to a staff meeting or board meeting, which may have more formal ground rules and participation requirements.
To maintain a record of your meeting
Next, a meeting itinerary can help you keep a record of your meeting. Even if it’s an informal meeting and you aren’t taking notes, a meeting itinerary can confirm that a meeting happened and what the objective of the meeting was.
If you are taking notes, you can use the meeting itinerary as an outline — or use an automated note-taking tool like Anchor AI to take notes for you.
Even if you’re recording the entire meeting, an itinerary can tell you what happened when, so it’s easier to look up the relevant part of the recording or transcript.
To identify and track action items
Finally, a meeting itinerary can help you identify and track action items — both those that were on the agenda from the start and those that arose during the meeting. You can include an “action item review” on the schedule to go over any unfinished items from the last meeting, and create a new to-do list at the end of each meeting.
If you’re using Anchor AI as your AI project manager, Max will automatically identify action items based on your meeting notes and add them to your task tracker.
What Your Meeting Itinerary Should Include
The purpose of a meeting itinerary is to communicate useful information to participants and facilitate a productive meeting. For simple meetings and recurring team meetings, you can use the same meeting itinerary template each time.
But for business trips, company retreats, and other busy occasions, you may need to use a more detailed meeting itinerary or event itinerary template.
Here are three important things to include on any meeting itinerary.
Location information
In today’s world of remote work, it’s easy to think that all you need to do to schedule a meeting is to send out a Zoom link. But in-person meetings still have their place, and even virtual meeting platforms come with their own accessibility challenges.
If you’re planning a company retreat, team-building event, or business trip, you may need to consider how participants will get from one meeting to the next, and use a meeting schedule template to ensure that none of them overlap.
If you’re organizing transport, include things like flight numbers and arrival times so participants know where they need to be at any given time.
Meeting agenda
The heart of any meeting itinerary is the meeting agenda, which is a list of everything you plan to discuss during the meeting and how long each topic will take. Be sure to schedule in time for introductory business, such as taking attendance and making announcements, before moving on to the first discussion topic.
Depending on the type of meeting, you can organize agenda items by “old business” and “new business,” or tackle the most urgent or time-sensitive items first.
Supporting documents
Most meetings work better if participants familiarize themselves with the itinerary before the meeting actually starts. In some cases, this might extend to supporting documents such as a committee report or proposal you’ll be voting on during the meeting.
Include any necessary details along with the itinerary, such as an MS Word doc or an Excel spreadsheet that participants can review before the meeting.
Meeting Itinerary Template
There are plenty of free itinerary templates available online, but chances are that none of them are just right for your meeting. Fortunately, most of them are customizable, so you can download a sample meeting template and make it your own. Here are three different meeting itinerary template examples to get you started.
Team meeting agenda template
Use this template for a recurring team meeting to get everyone on the same page and run a more effective meeting:
Meeting information:
- Meeting time:
- Meeting location:
- Facilitator:
- Notetaker:
- Participants:
Meeting agenda:
- Introductions (5 minutes):
- Agenda review (5 minutes):
- Committee reports (10 minutes):
- Discussion topic #1 (15 minutes):
- Discussion topic #2 (15 minutes):
- Discussion topic #3 (5 minutes):
- Action item review (5 minutes):
Business travel itinerary template
You can use this sample itinerary for a business trip that involves multiple meetings. Be sure to create a more detailed agenda for each individual meeting:
- 8:45 am: Arrive at [airport] on [flight number], take taxi to [destination]
- 10:00 am: Meeting #1 (executive meeting)
- 11:00 am: Meeting #2 (virtual meeting)
- 12:00 pm: Break for lunch
- 1:00 pm: Meeting #3 (board meeting)
- 4:15 pm: Take taxi back to [airport], depart on [flight number]
Corporate event itinerary template
If your meeting itinerary is for a corporate event, such as a company retreat, create a printable event itinerary or meeting schedule for participants:
- 8:45 am: Arrive for breakfast
- 10:00 am: All-hands meeting
- 11:00 am: Skip-level meeting
- 12:00 pm: Break for lunch
- 1:00 pm: Team-building exercises
- 5:00 pm: Wrap-up and announcements
Create Meeting Itineraries Automatically With Anchor AI
A meeting itinerary is essentially a meeting agenda — but in some cases, it may go into greater detail about the circumstances surrounding the meeting, such as travel logistics and location details. No matter the purpose of the meeting, having an itinerary helps to keep things running smoothly so you can get through everything on the agenda.
Creating a meeting agenda takes some effort, but when you use Anchor AI for project management, you can simply Ask Max to create a meeting itinerary for you based on your discussion items and the notes from your last meeting. Plus, Max can turn any action items into project tasks complete with a task owner and due date.
Sign up today to get started and try it out for yourself!