--- title: "Meeting Templates: Best Practices and Example Uses" description: "Which of the ten meeting templates that ship with Talkspirit suits your meeting, what sections each one runs, and how to shape a template teams keep" category: structure-governance section: meetings type: Reference lastUpdated: 2026-08-05 locale: en canonical: https://support.talkspirit.com/en/structure-governance/meeting-templates-best-practices-example-uses --- # Meeting Templates: Best Practices and Example Uses ## Meeting Templates: Best Practices and Example Uses Ten templates ship with Talkspirit, and the quickest route to a structure your team keeps is to install the one whose rhythm you already recognise, then cut what you do not use. Every template is a list of **Sections**, and that list is what makes one template right for a governance decision and another right for a five-minute stand-up. > **In summary:** open **Meeting settings** > **Templates** > **Browse gallery** and install the template whose sections match the meeting you already hold. Proposal work wants a governance template, the circle's operational meeting wants **Tactical Meeting**, and a quarterly conversation about direction wants **Strategic Review**. ## Which template suits which meeting? | Template | Best for | Sections, in order | |---|---|---| | **Governance Meeting** | A circle with several proposals to work through, with full facilitation | Check-in, Administrative Concerns, Agenda Building, Agenda, Closing | | **Streamlined Governance Meeting** | A smaller circle, or one quick governance decision | Check-in, Agenda, Closing | | **Tactical Meeting** | The circle's recurring operational meeting | Check-in, Checklists, Metrics Review, Agenda, Closing | | **Team Meeting** | A general team sync with no governance and no metrics | Check-in, Discussion, Action Items, Closing | | **Daily Standup** | A short daily alignment, no rounds and no facilitation | Yesterday, Today, Blockers | | **1-on-1** | A recurring manager and report conversation | Check-in, Wins & Updates, Blockers, Feedback, Growth, Closing | | **Strategic Review** | Stepping back from delivery to look at goals and direction | Check-in, Goals, Discussion, Action Items, Closing | | **Sprint Planning** | Committing to the next iteration's work | Check-in, Goals, Agenda, Action Items, Closing | | **Sprint Review** | Showing what shipped and collecting feedback on it | Check-in, Demo, Feedback, Action Items, Closing | | **Sprint Retrospective** | Reflecting on how the team worked, not on what it built | Check-in, Gather Data, Generate Insights, Decide Actions, Closing | Each gallery card also carries a section count and a rough total time, from 15 minutes for **Daily Standup** to just over an hour for **Strategic Review**. The card shows the sections as icons rather than names, so hover one to read it. > **Note:** **Checklists** carries whatever your organisation calls it, so the Tactical Meeting's second section may read differently for you. Once a template is installed, the **Choose…** link on the new-meeting form is the fastest way to compare two candidates: each entry lists its sections in order, by name. ![The template chooser in the New meeting form, scrolled to its lower half. Templates are grouped under category headings: Standup holds Daily Standup, 3 sections and 15 min, with the pills Yesterday, Today and Blockers joined by arrows; Strategic holds Strategic Review, 5 sections and 1 h 5 min, reading Check-in, Goals, Discussion, Action Items, Closing; Tactical holds Tactical Meeting, 5 sections and 50 min, reading Check-in, Checklists, Metrics Review, Agenda, Closing. Create new template sits at the foot of the list.](/images/structure-governance/meeting-templates-best-practices-example-uses/01-template-chooser-sections.png) ## Why is a template missing from my gallery? The gallery shows only what you can actually run, and it hides a whole template rather than offering one with a section you cannot fill. - **Governance Meeting**, **Streamlined Governance Meeting** and **Tactical Meeting** appear only with the Holacracy add-on. - **Tactical Meeting** also needs Checklists and Metrics switched on for your organisation, because it carries a section of each. - **Strategic Review** and **Sprint Planning** carry a **Goals** section, so they appear only if you can see Goals. A short gallery is therefore a question about rights and add-ons, not a fault. ## How do I shape a template teams keep using? - **Start from the closest system template, then cut.** Installing gives you your own **Personal** copy, so deleting a section you never use costs nothing, and you inherit a rhythm someone has already worked out. - **Let typed sections do the fetching.** A **Metrics** section arrives with the participants' metrics already listed, and **Checklists**, **Goals** and **Projects** work the same way. Re-listing those items as agenda items only duplicates them. - **Keep one working section, in the middle.** Only one **Agenda** section is allowed per template, and it is the one that takes items one at a time. Put the opening and closing rounds either side of it. - **Use Custom for the parts that are yours.** **Custom** is the only section type that can repeat, which makes it the right home for "Notes", "Decisions" or a standing question of your own. - **Put recurring questions in as agenda items, not sections.** A template's agenda items are copied into every meeting built from it, so a question you ask every week belongs there rather than in a section nobody fills in. - **Rename your copy.** Installing the same template twice appends " (copy)" to the name, and a lane of near-identical names is how a shared template stops being picked. - **Prove it before you share it.** Keep the template **Personal** for a few runs, then set its **Visibility** to a circle or to the whole **Organisation** once the shape has settled. For the editor itself, and for what each section type does during the meeting, see [Creating a meeting template](/structure-governance/how-to-create-a-meeting-template). ## What's Next? - [Creating a meeting template](/structure-governance/how-to-create-a-meeting-template) - [Tactical Meetings Overview](/structure-governance/introducing-tactical-meetings) - [Governance Meetings Overview](/structure-governance/introducing-governance-meetings) - [Meetings Overview](/structure-governance/meetings-overview)