20 Topics for Team Management Meetings at Work

We’ve all joined our fair share of unproductive meetings.

Whether it lacked a robust or comprehensive meeting agenda so you joined completely unprepared or the conversation strayed too far off-topic, it can be a frustrating experience for everyone involved.

To avoid this, you must have team meeting topic ideas ready to include in the agenda so the meeting can start on a positive note and ensure the conversation doesn’t go off the rails.

20 team meeting topic ideas 

Before you start your meetings, make sure you know exactly what you want to say. Whether it’s a standard staff meeting or one with c-suite executives, having set topics on a meeting agenda can go a long way in running a productive and efficient meeting.

Check out these 20 team meeting topic ideas to get the conversation flowing from the get-go!

• Icebreakers
• Current projects
• Progress on quarterly goals
• Industry insights and updates
• Team wins
• Process improvements
• Customer stories
• Roadblocks and challenges
• Product updates
• Upcoming company events
• Lightning talks
• Weekly key metrics
• Individual priorities
• Team shoutouts
• Past or incomplete action items
• Budgets
• Cross-functional needs and projects
• Backlog breakdown
• Questions for other team members
• Meeting feedback or score

1 Icebreakers 

Ready to break the ice?

Icebreakers usually take between 10-15 minutes and are especially useful for virtual meetings to get employees engaged. Everyone will take turns to share their weekend plans, catch each other up on any exciting plans, or chat casually as a team.

Unsure how to get this one started? Here are some questions you could ask:

• What fictional family would you like to join most?
• What is your most used emoji?
• Have you ever met your idol?
• What language would you like to instantly know?

2 Current projects

Once everyone is a little loosened up, go over current or ongoing projects. This should be discussed so everyone is updated on progress towards milestones and where a team member may be stuck and could use some help.

There are specific tasks that need to be touched on during current project status meeting, including:

• Task updates
• The status of the current project schedule
• Updates on the current budget
• Quality and scope determination

3 Progress on quarterly goals 

Similarly, you can get team members talking about their progress on quarterly goals, too. Like updates on current projects, this will allow the team to know where to put their focus on, or what action items need more attention, to ensure these goals are met.

Some prompting questions include:

• What objectives are we currently working towards?
• What is the status of X key result? 
• Are we on track to complete the objectives and key results this quarter?

4 Industry insights and updates 

How up-to-date is your team on the latest trends within the industry? Insights and updates on what is new in the industry are an excellent way for the team to stay in the know on the evolving marketing and find ways to grow and scale with these updates.

Some examples insights or updates include:

• Any upcoming conferences or webinars
• Changes that will impact the tools you use or some of your processes. Ex. updates to the google algorithm
• Blogs or podcasts about recent trends

5 Team wins

If you have something exciting to share, now is the time! Did the team cross off a major project milestone, sign up a new customer, or hire a new member to join the department? Whatever the case may be, it’s always a good idea to kick off a meeting with some exciting and positive news as it can set the tone for the rest of the meeting.

You can also ask that the team share a personal win, be it professional or personal, to get the conversation flowing.

Examples:

• We just completed a major project!
• Person X just closed a massive deal with a customer
• A new hire is joining our team

6 Process improvements

If the process or workflow isn’t, well, working, then it’s time to shake things up. Let your team know of any process updates that may have been decided upon, and take the time to answer any questions they may have. Remember to listen to feedback on what the team has to say!

Examples and questions:

• Adding an additional review step to the product launch email checklist
• How is it going with the freelance writers? Is there anything about the existing process that could be improved?
• What processes should be automated?

7 Customer stories

No matter the industry your business is in, an important team meeting topic is customer stories – whether good or bad.

You need to know what your customer is saying, listen to any recent reviews a customer has left, or read an email from a customer out loud to the team. Then, see if you can take the customer story and turn it into ways to improve or anything that may need to be changed in the future.

Examples:

• Share quotes from sales calls
• Link to the most recent case study on the website
• Insert a video of a customer describing how they use the product and the benefits that they are getting

8 Roadblocks and challenges

It’s not always smooth sailing, and sometimes the team will run into a roadblock, challenge, or bottleneck. Whatever holds someone back from making the progress they’d like to make on an assignment or project, two heads are better than one! It may be worth it for the team to brainstorm ways to overcome the challenge and work on team building. 

Examples and questions:

• What roadblocks are you encountering? How can we help?
• Need this person to sign-off on a document
• Encountering technical issues with project X

9 Product updates

When new products are being announced, released, or if they’re still in progress, this is a great topic of discussion for a meeting. Make sure everyone is informed and consider having a product manager join the meeting to walk through any necessary training or answer questions the team may have.

• What features are the team working on?
• When can we expect the new feature?
• What problem/use case does this new feature address? I.e why did we build this feature?

10 Upcoming company events

If an exciting event is right around the corner, gather your team to discuss the details. Whether your organization is attending a conference, taking part in a trade show, or even throwing a party, make sure all of the details are in order for a successful event.

• Feedback cycle
• Social event
• Conferences that some people are attending

11 Lightning talks

A lightning talk is a short presentation, lasting just a few minutes, joined by one or two slides. These talks are great for team meetings as they give more than one person the floor to speak and can cover more than one topic at a high level.

This method is usually common at conferences or at any type of meeting with a large audience that has a limited window of time. 

Examples:

• The future of your industry
• Weather phenomena in your region of the world
• A product pitch during a design sprint

12 Weekly key metrics

If you’re having a one-on-one meeting with your manager or direct report, it’s always a good idea to go over key metrics for the week. Doing so provides clear feedback and expectations of what should be done by the end of the week while also going over what to anticipate in the weeks to come. 

13 Individual priorities

For departmental meetings, one topic that you could choose to do is go around the meeting room and discuss individual priorities. This can be a great way to find out what is on the to-do list of everyone you manage and the members of the team to know more about the day-to-day responsibilities of those they work with.

Prompting Questions:

• What are your highest priorities this week?
• What are your priorities this month?
• What are you focusing on this quarter?

14 Team shoutouts

When someone on your team went above and beyond to help a coworker, hit a deadline, or assist a customer, give them a shoutout!

Recognition from your peers can go a long way when boosting team morale and employee satisfaction. It’s also a great tactic for showing appreciation and that their hard work isn’t being unnoticed. Partaking in team shoutouts is also a great way to start a meeting, as it sets a positive tone for topics to follow. 

Examples:

• Shoutout to Zander for helping me with my presentation
• Thanks Jeff for jumping on a last minute customer call to help troubleshoot! Couldn’t have done it without you
• Congrats to Piper for launching a new section on the website

15 Past or incomplete action items 

In a perfect world, all action items are completed on time or before the deadline. Unfortunately, a perfect world just isn’t reality.

No matter what action item has gone past its deadline or has been left incomplete, talk about it with your team. Find out if you can pinpoint what went wrong or what can be done differently next time to ensure the team is able to dot its i’s and cross its t’s.  

Prompting questions:

• What were the action items that came out of our last meeting? Any updates?
• Are there any outstanding action items for many meetings back?
• Are there any overdue action items? How can we get that accomplished? Any help?

16 Budgets

Let’s talk about money. Or at least the budget.

Whether it’s monthly, quarterly, or annually, a popular topic of conversation in any given conference room is the budget and if there are talks of going over. You’ll also want to know if the company is on track to be within the budget or if something needs to be adjusted in the future.

Highlight:

• The monthly, quarterly, or annual budget
• The current numbers
• Any discrepancies between the budgeted and the actual

17 Cross-functional needs and projects 

When working cross-functionally as a team or with other departments within an organization, be sure that everyone is caught up on the needs of everyone involved. You can also specify the projects being worked on, their status, and anything that may derail the initiative. 

Examples:

• We’ll need educational content for this new feature
• Marketing to create sales enablement content
• Customer success needs developer support for internal tooling

18 Backlog breakdown

Your team should always know what’s waiting for them around the corner. Take the time to discuss as a meeting topic what the backlog of projects or assignments like. During the conversation, pinpoint the priority level of each item in the backlog so that when one item gets crossed off the to-do list, your team knows which one is next to get finished.

Having this backlog can also be helpful when meeting with other departments, as it can provide transparency about what to expect from your department next.

Questions:

• What are the projects or assignments currently in the backlog?
• What resources are required to address items in this backlog?
• How can we triage these tasks?

19 Questions for other team members

Just before the meeting ends, leave time for a Q&A session with the team. Whether it’s questions for peers or ones directed to a manager, allowing for a safe space where all questions are welcome or encouraged is important and can lead to transparency.

Don’t have all the answers? Don’t panic. Just be sure to tell your team member who asked the question that you’ll be following up with the answer soon.

Examples:

• How can we help with your project?
• How is the search going for our new team member?
• Are we on track to hit our large goals?

20 Meeting feedback or score

Not every meeting is going to go 100% as planned. Sometimes the conversation may stray a little off-topic or it may even run over the allotted time. Ask your attendees to leave feedback on how the meeting went, or even provide a score from 1 to 10. 

If things could have gone better, use a meeting feedback tool like Fellow to ask for details on ways it can be improved upon in the future. 

Questions:

• What is your favourite / lead favourite part of this meeting?
• Should we keep holding this recurring meeting?
• How effective is this meeting?

Team Meeting Agenda Templates

Stay on topic!

No matter which of these 20 meeting topics you choose to incorporate into your meeting, it’s bound to offer a productive and meaningful conversation for everyone involved. And, if it’s appropriate to do so, don’t forget to have a little fun! Choose a different venue or office setting for your meeting to get a break from the routined space or even play a game to loosen up the attendees a bit. 

After all, the meeting is what you make of it. Be sure to include whatever topics of discussion will be covered in the agenda you send using Fellow!