Generally, Robert's Rules of Order is a guide for conducting meetings and making decisions as a group. The purpose of the book is "to enable assemblies of any size, with due regard for every member's opinion, to arrive at the general will on the maximum number of questions of varying complexity in a minimum amount of time and under all kinds of internal climate ranging from total harmony to hardened or impassioned division of opinion."

The book is designed for use in ordinary societies rather than legislative assemblies, and it is the most commonly adopted parliamentary authority among societies in the United States. It is also recognized as "the most widely used reference for meeting procedure and business rules in the English-speaking world."

As a reference, it is designed to answer, as nearly as possible, any question of parliamentary procedure that may arise. The Eleventh Edition contains 669 pages of text, and all of its original content was included because it "has at some time come up as a question of procedure somewhere". The completeness of the book was made so that organizations would not have to write extensive rules for themselves. In addition, members of different organizations could refer to the same book of rules.

If an assembly has not formally adopted a particular manual as its parliamentary authority, the provisions of any manual can be cited as "persuasive" in such a situation