The agenda format that actually works: every topic has an owner, a time box and a decision it needs.
Agendas fail in a predictable way: a list of topics with no owner, no time and no idea what 'done' looks like, so the meeting expands to fill the calendar slot and ends with another meeting. This template enforces the three fixes: each topic names an owner (the person who leads it and prepared for it), a time box (the totals are added up right on the document, so overload is visible before the meeting starts), and the outcome needed, decide, approve, assign or inform. A topic without an outcome is usually an email wearing a meeting costume.
The bottom sections are the point of the exercise: decisions and action items captured during the meeting, in the document everyone already has, rather than reconstructed later from memory. Send the agenda at least a day ahead with the pre-read attached; a meeting whose attendees first see the material in the room is a reading session, not a decision session.
How long should a meeting be? As long as the topics total, which this template makes explicit. If topics sum to 25 minutes, book 30, not an hour; Parkinson's law does the rest.
Who should own a topic? The person who needs the outcome and did the preparation, not automatically the most senior person present.
What if a topic needs no decision? Mark its outcome as 'inform' and ask honestly whether it could be a written update instead. Status meetings are the first kind to cut.