Team offsite agenda

Most offsite agendas are lists of topics with times next to them. The topics are usually right; the shape is usually wrong. Too much presentation, too little discussion, no time to digest what an activity revealed, and the commitments squeezed into the last ten minutes when everyone is thinking about the drive home.

The templates below fix the shape. Change the content to fit your purpose. If you have not yet decided what the offsite should fix, start with how to plan a team offsite and come back.

Five rules for any offsite agenda

1. Hard thinking in the morning, active work after lunch. Energy dips after a meal; schedule the activity or the walk then, not the strategy discussion.
2. Give every activity a debrief at least half as long as the activity itself. The activity creates the experience; the debrief turns it into something the team can use.
3. Leave a quarter of the day loose. Overruns are certain, and the best conversations happen in the gaps.
4. Nothing people could have read beforehand. Send updates and slides in advance; use the room for discussion.
5. Close with commitments, not a summary. Every commitment gets an owner and a date before anyone leaves.

Sample one-day team offsite agenda

For a team of eight to thirty people with one main purpose, such as rebuilding trust or agreeing how to work together after a change.

Sample two-day team offsite agenda

For when you need both relationship-building and substantial work, or when two teams that depend on each other are meeting. Day one builds the relationships that make day two's harder conversations possible.

If you are running a longer experiential block on day one, see outdoor team building activities or business simulation games for formats that create a useful debrief.

Half-day agenda: leadership alignment

For a leadership team whose decisions keep getting reopened, or whose messages to their teams conflict. Small group, tight focus, an external facilitator if possible.

The agenda is a promise about how the team's time will be spent. Keep the promise, especially the finish time.

Which agenda fits your team?

The right template depends on what the offsite is for: trust, belonging for newer people, alignment across teams or leaders agreeing on decisions. Our free offsite brief asks fifteen quick questions and gives you a one-page brief with the purpose, the format that fits, activities to shortlist and how to tell whether it worked. Paste the result into the template below.

A blank offsite agenda template

1. Purpose (one sentence): By the end of this offsite we will have ________.
2. How we will know it worked, 30 days later: ________.
3. Opening (10 minutes): purpose, outcomes, ground rules. Who speaks: ________.
4. Warm-up (20 to 30 minutes): the question or activity: ________.
5. Working session 1 (60 to 75 minutes): the topic and the output: ________.
6. Working session 2 (60 to 75 minutes): the topic and the output: ________.
7. Activity and debrief (90 to 120 minutes in total): the activity, and the work problem it mirrors: ________.
8. Commitments (30 to 40 minutes): owner and date for each.
9. Close (10 minutes): one line each.
10. Follow-up date: ________.

Adapting the agenda for a remote or hybrid offsite

If some or all of the team joins online, the same shape works with three changes. First, shorten the blocks: online attention fades faster, so split each working session into two of about forty minutes with a short break between. Second, make the warm-up do more work, because people on screens have fewer chances to speak; use breakout rooms of three or four so everyone talks in the first half hour. Third, pick activities designed for screens rather than squeezing an in-room exercise into a video call.

In a hybrid room, the people online are always at a disadvantage. Give each remote participant an in-room partner who brings them into the discussion, and run every whole-group exercise as if everyone were remote, with one shared board everyone can see and write on.

Roles for the day

• Facilitator: runs the process and protects the purpose. Ideally not the team leader. See facilitation.
• Timekeeper: gives five-minute warnings and decides, with the facilitator, what to cut when sessions overrun.
• Note-taker: captures decisions and commitments, not a transcript.
• Decision log: one visible sheet listing every decision, owner and date, updated through the day.

Common agenda mistakes

• Back-to-back presentations in the morning, when the team's energy is highest and best spent on discussion.
• An activity with no debrief, which turns the most expensive block of the day into entertainment.
• No breaks, or breaks used for catching up on email. Ask people to close laptops.
• Commitments in the last ten minutes, when people are tired and keen to leave. Give them a proper slot.
• Late evenings as the default social time. They exclude people with caring responsibilities and anyone who does not drink. Offer an earlier option.
• No 30-day check. The agenda for the follow-up meeting is the last item on the offsite agenda. A retrospective format works well for it.

Tour De Force runs this as live, experiential training for teams worldwide, online and in person. Talk to us, or play The Weekly Challenge from our gamified learning apps to see the method in ten minutes.