It's your job to make sure that team meetings run smoothly. You need to determine and finalize the meeting agenda, cover items adequately, and ensure that meetings end on time. This can sometimes be a bit like herding cats, but fortunately, there are some tools and free meeting agenda templates to help you.

Annette Marquis, a Microsoft Office System expert and co-owner of TRIAD Consulting, provides you with hands-on information for building an adjustable meeting agenda template in Microsoft Office Excel 2003. Anyone can list agenda items on an Excel worksheet, but this template is special: It manages and adjusts start and end times for individual agenda items automatically. This means that if you need to add a guest speaker or critical issue at the last minute, the time slots for the other agenda items will automatically be updated to accommodate this change, freeing you from guesswork and recalculations.

Using the information that follows, you can learn how to create this template and access a free sample meeting agenda template. Learn also how various Excel 2003 features can help you move and copy formulas, protect worksheet elements, and create flexible, automated lists so that you can work confidently with this template and other time-saving Excel templates in the future.

Use these resources including the meeting agenda template to take the headache out of scheduling an ever-changing agenda for your next team meeting.

• Build an adjustable meeting agenda in Excel (Article)
  Let Annette Marquis from TRIAD Consulting give you step-by-step instructions for building your own meeting agenda.
• Adjustable meeting agenda template (Template)
  Use this ready-made meeting agenda template for Excel 2003 to plan your meeting.
• Move or copy a formula (Article)
  Learn how to work with formulas in your meeting agenda template.
• Create an Excel list (Article)
  See how Excel lists can help you automate your meeting agenda template.
• Protect worksheet or workbook elements (Article)
  Protect formulas and other elements in your meeting agenda.
• Create a template (Article)
  Turn your meeting agenda worksheet into a reusable template.