In this article, you will learn:
- The complete meeting lifecycle: before, during, and after
- How Sherpany supports each step
- How to ensure clarity, preparation, and progress in every meeting
What it means: Is a meeting the best tool to achieve your goal, or would an e-mail be enough? If the meeting has no decision, no question, or no coordination need, cancel it.
Who: Meeting Leader & Meeting Organiser
How Sherpany supports this: Use TopicHub to collect topics that require a meeting.
The result: People are more engaged when meetings clearly drive progress.
What it means: What is the explicit reason for your meeting? Do you know what you want to achieve? Write one sentence that explains why this meeting exists.
Who: Meeting Leader & Meeting Organiser
How Sherpany supports this: Use the Meeting Title and Purpose field to add clear context.
The result: Clear expectations drive focus and reduce the risk of the meeting drifting into unrelated topics.
What it means: Have you crafted a clear agenda that serves the purpose of your meeting? Build your agenda as a sequence of questions, not topics.
Who: Meeting Leader & Meeting Organiser
How Sherpany supports this: Use the Agenda Builder with item types, timeboxes, and owner attribution. Pull in topics from TopicHub or follow up on Tasks and Decisions from previous meetings to keep business moving.
The result: A focused agenda supports time management and enables clear decisions.
What it means: Have you only invited those who can contribute to the meeting? Do they all know why they are invited, and what they need to prepare? Meetings should aim to have close to 8 participants if you want to have focused discussions and clear decisions.
Who: Meeting Leader & Meeting Organiser
How Sherpany supports this: Select participants and assign the meeting leader. Use agenda item descriptions to clarify expectations. Use document flags to show what must be read before the meeting. Note: Sherpany is designed for formal meetings and should generally avoid more than 20 attendees.
The result: Leaner meetings with participants who understand their role and prepare effectively.
What it means: Have you shared background information before the meeting so that a thoughtful discussion can take place and decisions can be made? An excellent agenda is more than a list of topics, it's a collection of documents and background so that in the meeting people can have informed conversations.
Who: Meeting Organiser
How Sherpany supports this: Use TopicHub and the Contributor Function to collect documents from subject-matter experts and meeting participants. Add documents via drag-and-drop or import them from the Library.
The result: Sharing documents in advance reduces presentation time and increases time spent on meaningful discussion.
What it means: Have you read the information and prepared for discussions and potential blockers? Meeting attendees and read all documents and come prepared for discussions.
Who: Meeting Participants
How Sherpany supports this: The Meeting Preparedness bar shows how prepared you are: have you read documents, cast votes, and answered open questions? Use Annotations for private notes and Sherpany’s AI functions to deepen your understanding.
The result: Preparation improves questioning, reduces blind spots, and leads to better decisions.
What it means: Have you asked clarifying questions in a centralised, public forum to ensure that the meeting is results-oriented? Ask clarifying questions before the meeting to save time in the meeting.
Who: Meeting Leader & Meeting Participants
How Sherpany supports this: Use the Comments function to post straightforward questions that should be resolved before the meeting. Avoid long discussions that belong in the meeting itself.
The result: A shared baseline of understanding supports faster, more focused in-meeting discussions.
What it means: Have you prepared to run the meeting? Meeting leaders and agenda item leaders need to get in the right mindspace before the meeting.
Who: Meeting Leader & Agenda Item Leaders
How Sherpany supports this: Use the Meeting Preparedness rating to see how prepared participants are. If preparation is low, consider postponing the meeting or scheduling dedicated preparation time at the start. Comments can reveal topics requiring more or less time.
The result: Arriving well-prepared improves time management and the quality of conversation.
What it means: Remember that we are all human. Welcoming people and thanking them for their time will help set the tone for a successful meeting. This should take no more than 1 minute.
Who: Meeting Leader
How Sherpany supports this: Schedule this in the agenda as an “Organisational” item.
The result: A positive climate increases collaboration and thinking quality. (Sources)
What it means: Take the temperature of the room by doing a short check-in. This will help create an open atmosphere in which opinions are shared and better decisions are reached. This should take no longer than 5 minutes.
Who: Meeting Leader & Meeting Participants
How Sherpany supports this: Schedule this in the agenda as a "Organisational" item.
The result: A check-in will help get people focused on your meeting and increases participation later in the meeting. Download our list of check-in questions.
What it means: Remind people of the purpose of the meeting. Formulate it in a positive way to generate excitement.
Who: Meeting Leader
How Sherpany supports this: Restate the text in the Purpose field to re-anchor everyone.
The result: Reinforcing the purpose and timing aligns participants’ attention.
What it means: The agenda is your road map. Stick to it and avoid deviating from the journey you have promised.
Who: Meeting Leader
How Sherpany supports this: Use Presenter Mode to keep the group focused on the current item.
The result: Visibility of timing and item focus supports disciplined time management.
What it means: Within your agenda, each item should be phrased as a question. Questions make people think and find solutions.
Who: Meeting Leader & Agenda Item Leaders
How Sherpany supports this: Use the agenda item description to articulate the key question.
The result: Questions drive contribution and limit unnecessary discussion.
What it means: Discussions are where fresh information is brought to light and assumptions challenged. Be inclusive and embrace different perspectives as they will lead to better decisions.
Who: Meeting Leader & Meeting Participants
How Sherpany supports this: Ensure sufficient allocated time and use the time per agenda item to clearly signal this. The meeting leader should ask questions and let others answer first.
The result: Having meeting participants speak first allows for more perspectives and minimises the risk of group-think.
What it means: Once you arrive at a decision, paraphrase what was discussed and verify the conclusion with the group to ensure there is a common understanding.
Who: Meeting Leader & Meeting Organiser
How Sherpany supports this: The Meeting Leader and Minutes Taker work together to ensure conclusions are captured accurately by restating them aloud.
The result: Checking understand of agenda item results in the meeting leads to faster and more accurate minutes and avoids confusion later on.
What it means: Once you have reached a common understanding, ensure that everyone commits to achieving the agreed actions. (ex. Who will deliver what by when?)
Who: Meeting Leader, Meeting Participants, & Meeting Organiser
How Sherpany supports this: Use the Tasks and Decisions fields in the Minutes module to accurately capture commitments and allow those people to easily follow up on them afterwards.
The result: Using the tasks and decisions function ensures that commitments are not buried in minutes and transparently available to all. This helps ensure they are completed.
What it means: Before you leave the meeting, take time to close it properly. Closing the meeting creates a sense of achievement. Summarise the tasks to be completed and the decisions that were reached.
Who: Meeting Leader
How Sherpany supports this: Schedule an agenda item at the end for 5 minutes as a summary and closing.
The result: A closing to the meeting, is a final check on the meeting's outcomes and helps people mentally close the meeting and turn to operation mode of acting on what was decided.
What it means: As the meeting leader, embrace feedback. Ask your meeting participants to evaluate your meeting leadership anonymously.
Who: Meeting Leader & Meeting Participants
How Sherpany supports this: Use the Meeting Feedback function.
The result: A feedback loop allows you to continuously improve meetings to ensure your meetings are seen as value creators not time sucks.
What it means: Lastly, have a short check-out and take the temperature of the room again. Are people motivated and ready to tackle their actions?
Who: Meeting Leader & Meeting Participants
How Sherpany supports this: This can be all scheduled in the 5 minute summary of the meeting.
The result: Give people a chance to give each other thanks and leave the meeting knowing it was a valuable use of their time.
What it means: After the meeting, finalise the minutes. Keep them short and to the point, while giving context to how the group arrived at planned actions and decisions.
Who: Meeting Organiser & Meeting Leader
How Sherpany supports this: Finalise the minutes in the Minutes Module and have them approved by the Meeting Leader and anyone else deemed necessary before publication.
The result: Having the miutes approved by others is a check on their quality and the understanding of what happened in the meeting. The minutes are generally the legally-binding record of the meetings proceedings.
What it means: Share the minutes with the meeting group and relevant stakeholders.
Who: Meeting Leader & Meeting Organiser
How Sherpany supports this: The minutes are available to all attendees of the meeting. You can also have viewer participants who can access the minutes. Finally, the minutes can be downloaded as a PDF and distributed to relevant stakeholders.
The result: Ensuring that attendees and stakeholders have access to the minutes ensures they are able to follow through with the resulting actions of the meeting.
What it means: Lastly, great meeting leadership embraces transparency. Share the collected meeting feedback and improve your meetings upon it.
Who: Meeting Leader
How Sherpany supports this: Read through the feedback received and summarise it with your action plan in the next meeting. This can also be an organisational item at the start of your next meeting.
The result: Acting on feedback shows effective leadership and will help improve meeting quality and participation going forward.