Changing agendas

Sometimes our agenda and their agendas
are not aligned.  Make sure you detect
at the start of the meeting that this is the case
and redirect the meeting accordingly.

It's nice to have an agenda and bring it to a meeting but it's quite possible and sometimes likely that the meeting agenda and objective will change.  There's a good practice called 'resetting' when you state what you had planned for the meeting agenda and ask the attendees if anything has changed to make sure that everyone's still on the same page before starting.  If things have changed, then the facilitator can decide to focus on those new issues, cancel the meeting, postpone it or hold it as it was originally specified.

Main point here is that we have to be able to change when people have changed and adjust accordingly.  Although we may have agendas in or meetings and need and want to get things done, we still have to be very flexible and dynamic in dealing with people and their constantly-changing needs, moods, and desires.