What’s the purpose of an offsite meeting?

Offsite meetings are a great opportunity for teams to get together and collaborate on tackling problems, refining goals, and planning out the future of the company outside a typical office environment (or finally face-to-face for remote teams)! There are many benefits and reasons to have an offsite meeting, including:

• Sparking new ideas with a change of scenery
• Running team building exercises to build camaraderie within and across teams
• Bringing the team together for a hyper-focused day of problem solving and strategic planning without the interruptions
• Giving employees the opportunity to work with people they don’t typically get to work with

Offsite meeting template walk-through:

1. Objectives - why we’re here

Use this time to clearly outline what you’re hoping to accomplish by the end of this offsite meeting. If it’s a day that's jam-packed with team-building activities, maybe the goal is that each employee learns something new about someone they don’t normally work with. If it’s a team’s offsite meeting, the goal might be to plan out your quarterly strategy. Whatever it is, be clear about what success will look like at the end of the day(s).

2. Ground rules

Outline the specifics and logistics of the offsite meeting. This includes how people will get to the offsite, by what time, and what the day will entail. You can also share more details on how people will be divided up into teams, and any restrictions or rules for the day.

3. Activities/sessions

Outline the day’s activities for your team so that everyone can prepare accordingly. Add the itinerary in this agenda for your team to have a place to easily refer back to at any time during the offsite.

4. Next steps

You’ve just completed your offsite meeting. What’s next? Document summaries, notes, and assign next steps so all of the hard work the team has put in gets put into motion ASAP!

Every team offsite meeting is different depending on your objective, but this agenda template will help you keep things on track.