A little while ago, I read about the idea of removing AOB from meeting agendas and like a lot of good ideas, it struck me as so simple in a “why haven’t I noticed this before?” kind of a way.

If you have structured your meeting correctly, there should be an agenda that you want to cover alongside some intended outcomes. ‘Any other business’ is just that – other business! If it’s not covered by the existing agenda it is, by definition, not relevant to the meeting.

What’s more, some unscrupulous people use AOB to talk about their pet peeves or use it as a soap box, or to sneak in topics that might be better dealt with outside the meeting in question. It’s your meeting, keep it that way.

Try removing AOB from your agenda – I suspect you’ll find no-one misses it.