Box B: Topics, Tasks
Topic and task are closely entwined views on a meeting segment.
The question “what is the segment about?” may as well be answered with a task description (e.g. “brainstorming”) as with a topic (e.g. “the shape of the appliance that is being designed in this meeting”), but each answer is incomplete, if the other answer is not taken into consideration as well. Tasks and topics can exist both on a person and on group level.
They can be part of a hierarchy of subtasks and subtopics. Both may be related to agenda points.
A task can be evaluated in terms of its progress.
As background knowledge for this box, the meeting agenda gives an indication of several tasks and topics that will appear in the meeting.