Write a meeting agenda

An agenda where every item ends in a decision or an owner — the thing that separates a working meeting from a status update.

When to use it

Any meeting you are nervous will drift — a kickoff, a decision meeting, a cross-team sync where ownership is unclear.

What it prevents

The agenda that is really a topic list. “Introductions, updates, discussion, next steps” schedules time without producing anything. Forcing every item to end in a decision or an owner is what makes the meeting do work rather than describe it.

The prompt

Write an agenda for a 30-minute project kickoff meeting.

### Audience
Five people who have not worked together before and doubt the meeting is a use of their time.

### Context
The project is a two-week migration off a legacy billing system. The real risk is unclear ownership, so the agenda should force names against tasks.

### Requirements
- Length: Fits on one screen; four items at most.
- Output format: A numbered list. Each item has a title, a time box in minutes, and the one decision it must produce.
- Every item ends in a decision or an owner, not a discussion.
- Avoid: "introductions", "any other business", and any item without a stated output.

### Example of the wanted output
1. Scope lock (10 min) — decide what is explicitly out of scope. Owner: tech lead.

### Notes
"""
Kickoff for the billing migration. Need owners for cutover, rollback, and comms.
"""

Why each part is there

Every section of that prompt exists because a specific failure happens without it. These are the checks it passes, and what each one is protecting you from:

• States a concrete task — why this matters
• Avoids vague language — why this matters
• Specifies an output format — why this matters
• Gives context or audience — why this matters
• Avoids dangling references — why this matters
• Includes an example — why this matters
• Separates data from instructions — why this matters
• Avoids over-aggressive phrasing — why this matters
• Defines what a good answer looks like — why this matters

How to adapt this one

Change the meeting and its real risk — the risk is what the agenda should attack. Keep the rule that every item names a decision or an owner, and keep the time boxes; an item with no time box expands to fill the hour. The “fits on one screen” cap is doing quiet work too: it forces you to cut the items that were never going to produce anything.

The mistake this prompt avoids

Listing topics instead of outcomes. “Discuss the migration” is not an agenda item; “decide who owns rollback” is. A topic invites conversation and ends when time runs out; a decision invites a conclusion and ends when it is made. The difference is the entire value of writing an agenda at all.

A variation

Running a recurring meeting rather than a one-off? Ask for a standing agenda with a fixed first item — “review last week's action items and flag any that slipped” — so the meeting has built-in accountability. One-off meetings need scope; recurring ones need a loop that catches the work that quietly falls off.

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