How to run leadership and management meetings with Decisions

Looking for a different meeting type? View our other popular guides:

Project Meetings
Board and Committee Meetings
Joining as a Meeting Attendee

Prerequisite: Choose the Teams team where meeting content will live

To keep meeting agendas, documents, decisions, and follow-ups organized, and to make access easy to manage, choose a Microsoft Teams team that will act as the “home” for your leadership and management meeting content. Decisions stores meeting content in the team and channel you select.

Already have a leadership team in Teams? You can use that existing team.
It doesn’t have to be just for meetings; it can be used for broader collaboration too.

Don’t have one yet? Create a dedicated Teams team for your leadership group to keep meeting materials in one secure, predictable place. Follow this Microsoft article to learn how to create and manage one: Create a team from scratch in Microsoft Teams.

Recommended membership setup:

Add executive assistants and meeting admins as Owners so they can manage agendas, documents, and publishing.
Add the leadership team as Members so they can access meeting materials and contribute when needed.

Step 1: Prepare the agenda

A strong agenda keeps leadership and management meetings decision-focused. It reduces round-the-room updates and creates space for priorities, risks, and cross-functional alignment. It also makes it easy for leaders and their teams to propose relevant topics ahead of time.

When you create an agenda for a leadership or management meeting in the Decisions app, the agenda starts as a draft. This lets you prepare the flow, decision points, and pre-reads privately, without notifying attendees.

Nothing is shared until you choose to Publish. You can also share the draft with other meeting admins (like an executive assistant or co-organizer) to collaborate before the meeting.

Open the meeting in the Decisions app
Choose Create agenda or use the AI Agenda Assistant to draft an agenda from an existing document (Word, PDF, or an email thread)
Ask attendees to suggest agenda items in advance
Add supporting documents to each agenda item (upload or link)
Publish the agenda and Notify attendees
Optional: Create Meeting Slides to combine your agenda and supporting attachments into a single PowerPoint deck you can share on a meeting room screen or in Microsoft Teams. This gives attendees a clear visual guide, making it easier to follow the discussion and stay aligned as you move through topics.

Tip: If this is a recurring leadership cadence, use an existing meeting series and create a standing agenda.

Step 2: Run the meeting

The goal is to capture meeting outcomes in real time: decisions made, actions assigned, and the key context behind them. That way, alignment is clear, accountability is documented, and follow-up isn’t lost in side conversations or scattered notes.

Start the Microsoft Teams recording and transcript at the beginning of the meeting (or preset the meeting for automated recording)
Or, capture notes during the meeting using the Decisions AI mobile app if you’re away from your laptop (useful for in-room or hybrid setups)
Add extra updates, tasks, and decisions manually during the meeting if needed

Step 3: Generate AI meeting minutes

Meeting minutes create a clear, formal record of leadership and management meeting outcomes: what was discussed, what was decided, and who owns the next steps. They’re ideal when accountability, auditability, and stakeholder communication matter, and they make it easy to share relevant decisions and topics with other groups or teams when needed.

After the meeting, click Minutes at the top of your agenda or from your dashboard
Review and edit the minutes as needed (for clarity, owners, and due dates)
Share or publish the minutes so stakeholders have one source of truth for follow-up

Tip: If you need a faster, less formal summary, generate an AI recap instead.

Step 4: Follow up on decisions and tasks

This is where leadership and management meetings create momentum. Clear decision and task tracking prevents re-litigating past discussions, keeps stakeholders aligned, and supports follow-through, without turning the meeting into a task review.

At the top of any Agenda, use the Decisions and Tasks tiles to review outcomes without scrolling
The number on each tile shows total open tasks and decisions for that Teams group (not just the current meeting)

Ready to put this into action? Open the Decisions app in Microsoft Teams and start drafting the agenda and meeting documents for your next executive meeting today.

Note: For more complex workflows, Decisions also includes other features, such as:

Voting as well as Structured Approvals for formal approvals and recorded outcomes
Restricted access to specific attachments so only the right people see sensitive materials
Electronic signature for approvals and document sign-off
Customizable meeting documents to match your organization’s format and branding
Case Submission if your organisation requires a more formal way of escalating topics for discussion
Advanced Reporting if accountability and visibility into meeting outcomes is vital in your organisation