President Dwight D. Eisenhower noted, “I have often found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” Creating a plan is a valuable phase in decision making, even if the plan itself isn’t followed to the letter in the end. Setting an agenda is crucial.

An agenda for a meeting should detail the meeting’s subject, goal, logistics, and schedule. It should list or include any materials that participants would need to have read or reviewed in advance of the meeting so that everyone arrives with the appropriate background on the issue. Think of your agenda as a checklist—an essential component of meeting success (Gawande, 2009). A sample agenda for Jacob’s meeting is provided in Figure 10.2.