Mastering meeting minutes

Meetings provide you with an opportunity to raise questions that require discussion and receive input from a wide range of individuals. However, you can’t just put people in a room and expect them to talk through all your concerns.

Effective meetings start with a clear agenda, expand upon expected outcomes, and end with consensus surrounding next steps. Beyond the actual meeting, meeting minutes serve as a reminder and guiding force for your team moving forward.

In this article, you will learn what meeting minutes are and what to do before, during, and after meetings.

What are meeting minutes?

Meeting minutes are a written record of the discussions, decisions, and action items from a meeting. Good meeting minutes ensure alignment with value and hold individuals accountable for what was discussed. You can also use meeting minutes to fill in team members who were unable to attend the meeting.

Before the meeting

The success of a meeting starts before the meeting even begins with good preparation.

Be prepared

If you find yourself responsible for a meeting, you need to create an agenda that you distribute to all your attendees to set expectations for the meeting. You should share the agenda before the meeting, allowing enough time for it to be reviewed and any pre-meeting actions or considerations to be completed:

For the meeting minutes, you should ensure that you have captured essential details such as the meeting date, time, and location, as well as identify attendees and note any notable absentees and the reasons for their absence:

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During the meeting

As the meeting progresses, you’ll work your way through the agenda covering the topics that need discussion. Because you’re responsible for the meeting, you’re also responsible for the meeting minutes.

The meeting minutes are a record of what was discussed and agreed upon, as well as what you plan to accomplish in the future.

Engage in active listening

In order to write clear and accurate meeting minutes it’s essential for you to actively listen to discussions and conversations.

The notes you make shouldn’t be an exact transcription of every word (most of the video conferencing software tools can do that for you), but instead should capture the essence of what was said.

Recording meeting notes

As you’re listening, you’ll be looking to note any of the following elements:

• Points of clarity, contention, or strong opinions
• Decisions that are made based on the discussion. This should include the rationale behind each decision as it provides context for future reference
• Actions that need to take place following the meeting. This should include not just what the action it, but also who is responsible for it, as well as the deadline

You may also find it useful to periodically review your notes during the meeting to ensure accuracy. It’s better to clarify any points when people are in the room than rely on a potentially inaccurate recollection after the event.

It’s also beneficial to summarize discussions when appropriate, highlighting key points and outcomes so that all parties are clear on what is being recorded.

Following the meeting

After the meeting, some of your team members might begin to forget what was agreed upon, or question who was assigned what. This makes meeting minutes all the more important for ensuring alignment.

Writing up your meeting minutes

The aim of the meeting minutes is not just to record what happens, but also ensure that attendees can easily review and act upon them, so it’s essential to write in a clear and concise manner, using short sentences and bullet points to convey information efficiently.

The meeting minutes shouldn’t be a transcript of the entire meeting, so much as a distillation of the key discussions and decisions. It’s also essential to write your meeting minutes using action verbs in order to convey a sense of motion and responsibility.

For example, “decided,” “approved,” or “assigned” provide clarity on the outcomes of the meeting, whereas “discussed” and “shared” are more passive and don’t indicate closure or agreement.

Meeting minutes are intended to be opinion neutral, so only record the facts and seek to avoid inserting your own opinions as you write.

If there are presentations, reports, or other documents discussed during the meeting, then these should be attached to, or linked from, the meeting minutes for future reference.

Finally, it’s important that you proofread meeting minutes for accuracy, clarity, and completeness. Correct any errors or unclear passages to ensure a polished document.

You should aim to distribute the meeting minutes as soon as possible to ensure that the information is fresh in everyone’s minds. This also allows you to seek clarification on any information or decisions made during the meeting and for attendees to provide feedback more accurately.

Final thoughts

Taking effective meeting minutes requires a combination of preparation, active listening, and organizational skills. By following these guidelines, you can create meeting minutes that serve as valuable references for both current and future endeavors.

You can find a meeting minutes template here that you can copy and use for recording your own meeting minutes.

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