Writing good minutes is an under-valued talent. Taking notes is a basic skill and anyone can scribble down a rough outline of a meeting, but to take good notes and create minutes that provide a comprehensive and accurate reflection of a meeting requires the use of thorough procedures and a few clever techniques.
Whatever the status, there should never be a meeting without minutes. Some meetings are quite casual, some regular base-touching exercises and others high-importance or highly sensitive, but whatever the setting, you should be careful to document accurately what was said and by whom. Depending on how important the meeting is you could decide to only write a short email summing the conversation up, but something should be written. This is the only way to ensure that people have an agreed common understanding of what has been discussed and decided.
Writing up good meeting minutes takes time. Unless you are extremely fast, you can expect that the write-up will sometimes take as long as the actual meeting. This can be frustrating, as you should plan to send out meeting minutes as soon as you possibly can. Within a day is ideal; within fifteen minutes would be best. This means that everyone keeps what was discussed and agreed to in mind and can also mean that they are more likely to do what they agreed.
So, how can you produce good minutes without spending too long doing it? Here are a few essential points.
Get familiar
Before the meeting even takes place, you can make your minute taking easier by making yourself familiar with the subject to be discussed. A good minute taker will prepare before the meeting, perhaps by reviewing previous minutes, and build a glossary of names and terms. Make a note of the abbreviations you will use, eg each speaker. If the topic is quite specialised it will save time if you are able to put the comments into context, and recognise and spell key terms and speakers’ names.
Sit pretty
On the day, be in place in good time to be ready as soon as needed. Try to sit where you can see and hear clearly and have everything you need ready and within reach. Although you may want to be unobtrusive, check that you will be able to catch the eye of the chairman if necessary.
Be clear
The greatest time saver of all is the simplest. Write in a way that allows someone who has not attended the meeting to understand the minutes. You will get two things from that additional effort. Firstly, someone who has not attended the meeting will understand your minutes. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, you will be able to understand your minutes at a later date.
Keep it brief
Writing – and later editing – endless pages of long-hand notes is time-consuming and not necessarily the best way to record a meeting. At some points you will need to provide in-depth coverage of a discussion, but sometimes concise summary or paraphrasing is called for. Occasionally you will need to pause, listen and mentally structure what you hear.
During the meeting it is (again) the simple things that matter. Be sure to record the facts – the date, the attendees and apologies, who said what, the key decisions made and the actions agreed. If you’re not sure of something, ask for clarification – it’s likely that other people in the room will appreciate it too.
Accuracy and understanding make the difference between good minutes and rough notes. Sometimes , in order to ‘hear’ accurately what is said by all sides, you may need to consciously maintain your detachment from the conversation, both while taking notes and later. Meetings can get heated at times, and it can be important that the minute-taker is seen by the meeting participants as being neutral.
Writing up your minutes
Use a template – the same one every time
It does not need to be sophisticated but should support the reader in absorbing the content and in locating important information. The concept of a template also includes the style of writing, such as the level of formality of the writing and “house styles” for names and abbreviations. If you share the role of minute taking, make sure everyone uses the same template, the same glossary, the same understanding of how much information to record, and the same style of writing.
Each entry should be clearly marked as a certain type; usually you would use decision, information and action item. Add others as you need them (sometimes “status” is a different category).
Allocate actions
The purpose of most meetings is to allocate actions, so make sure everyone knows theirs. Allocate just one owner per action item. This person is responsible to the meeting group for ensuring that the work is finished by the due date – which you will be responsible for giving him written notice of through the minutes.
Add due dates
Each action has a due date and there should never be an action item without a due date. The date can be broad (‘this year’) and it can be distant (‘before next April’) but it should be fairly specific.
At the end of the meeting you should record who attended the meeting (including partial attendance) and who is to be informed about the outcomes and include this in the final document.
Reviewing your minutes
So what should you do with the meeting minutes once you have finished writing them?
Check them
Give them to someone who was not at the meeting to be checked for typos, obvious errors and clarity, in keeping with the set template, and accurate with reference to your glossary of names and specialist terms.
Pass them on
You may need to pass the corrected minutes to the chairman to confirm that they are an accurate reflection of the meeting.
Share them
Use a ‘share’ facility or email to send them to the participants and ask them to check carefully. Do this as soon as possible.
Depending on when the next meeting occurs, people must either provide their feedback within a certain timeframe (which you should state in the email) or at the next meeting. If nothing has been brought forward within the agreed timeframe, the minutes are considered to be signed off. This is critical for projects with external customers, but also good practice internally.
You will probably refine most of these points to suit your business and also add more. However, these are the basics and if you follow them, you will produce minutes well above the average standard.
