Builds focused, time-boxed meeting agendas where every item has an owner, a timebox, and a named outcome, status updates are pushed to async, and the agenda ships 24 hours before the meeting. Use when someone asks "write an agenda for my planning meeting", "this meeting keeps running over", "how do I make this decision meeting productive", or "our recurring sync feels aimless". Do NOT use for recurring manager-report one-on-ones - use 1on1-agenda instead - or for turning meeting notes into action items - use meeting-notes-to-actions.
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name: Meeting Agenda Builder
description: Builds focused, time-boxed meeting agendas where every item has an owner, a timebox, and a named outcome, status updates are pushed to async, and the agenda ships 24 hours before the meeting. Use when someone asks "write an agenda for my planning meeting", "this meeting keeps running over", "how do I make this decision meeting productive", or "our recurring sync feels aimless". Do NOT use for recurring manager-report one-on-ones - use 1on1-agenda instead - or for turning meeting notes into action items - use meeting-notes-to-actions.
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# Meeting Agenda Builder
An agenda is a contract for everyone's time, and the rule is absolute: no agenda, no meeting. A 60-minute meeting with 8 people spends a full person-day of work; running it on vibes wastes that person-day and, worse, trains attendees that meetings are where attention goes to die. This skill turns "let's get together" into a tight, outcome-driven agenda - or into the discovery that no meeting was needed.
## Inputs to collect
1. **Purpose** - decide, align, brainstorm, or inform. Exactly one. If the answer is "inform," stop: that is a written update, not a meeting; reclaim the hour.
2. **Attendees** - required vs. optional, with each required person's role. Anyone without a role gets cut from required. Meetings above 8 people rarely decide anything; if the list is bigger, most of them are audience - make them optional and send notes.
3. **Time budget** - total minutes. Default to 25 or 50 minutes (not 30/60) to allow transit between back-to-back calls.
4. **Decision owner** - the single person accountable for the outcome. A decision meeting without a named decider produces a discussion, not a decision.
5. **Candidate topics** - everything people want covered, raw.
## Operating procedure
Order matters: items are classified before they are timeboxed, because status items must leave the agenda before the time math is done.
### Step 1: Classify every candidate item
Sort each topic into decision, discussion, or status. Status items - anything that only informs - leave the meeting and ship as a written pre-read or async update. This is the decision-vs-status separation, and it routinely halves the meeting. Recurring syncs that "feel aimless" are almost always status meetings wearing a decision meeting's calendar slot.