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Business English vocabulary · Meetings

Set the agenda

Meaning in business english, with examples

phraseCore term

In business english, set the agenda means: To decide the main topics, order, or focus for a meeting, discussion, or wider conversation.

In Turkish: gündemi belirlemek

How it is used

Used for meetings, workshops, projects, and public discussion. It can mean planning discussion points or strongly influencing what others talk about.

Example sentences

  1. Before the vendor call, Maya set the agenda so pricing issues would be discussed after the service problems.

    Here the phrase means organizing the order of topics to control the flow and priorities of the meeting.

  2. The research memo helped set the agenda for the quarterly review by highlighting delays in two regional projects.

    In this case, the memo influences which issues become central in the later discussion, not just a formal agenda list.

Common collocations

  • set the agenda for a meeting
  • set the agenda early
  • help set the agenda
  • agendaA list of the topics that will be discussed in a meeting, usually in the order they will be covered and shared with attendees beforehand.
  • minutesThe official written record of a meeting, listing who attended, what was discussed, what was decided and who will do what next.

More terms: Meetings

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