#Keep the minutes how to#

This way, you can check if tasks have been accomplished, and you can use these minutes to guide how your meeting will progress.Įffective meetings are the product of good leadership, a collaborative team, minimum small talk and excellent note-taking. Make sure you bring your minutes to the next follow-up meeting so you can kick off your meeting with a recap. If meeting attendees request physical copies, provide those and keep duplicates for yourself - these documents are something to be proud of! 6. If your company has an overarching folder for minute-keeping, upload them for easy access. Once you’ve edited your minutes, share them with your colleagues. It’s always nice to have a second set of eyes look over something you’ve put together.

If you’re new to taking meeting minutes, get them approved by a superior if needed. You can even go back after the meeting and edit your minutes so they make sense, fix your tenses to be consistent and attach any extra documents or information that may have been referenced. Make a mental note before the meeting starts to be objective and avoid any judgment or bias. It’s easy to fall behind while taking notes in a meeting - conversations are fast-paced, and it can be hard to keep up. If some people were unable to join, write their names down too to make sure they are still in the loop.

Some key things to include in your meeting minutes are the time and date of the meeting, names of the participants on the conference call, decisions made, new topics brought up and the next meeting time and date. This also allows you to create an agenda in a format that works for the meeting.

You can use your meeting minutes to set up the meeting structure as well for easy note-taking and topic changes. Preplanīy setting and sending a meeting agenda to your colleagues beforehand, you can help guide the conversation and cut out any tangents that might arise.

#Keep the minutes how to#

How to write effective meeting minutes in 6 steps 1. Logging what items are actionable throughout your meeting makes it easy for attendees to know what they need to do when the meeting ends, without diverting attention from what is currently being discussed. By recording what needs to be done before the next meeting happens, colleagues can easily keep track of what they need to do to prepare for the next call. Plan the next steps for future meetingsĪ meeting is never just one meeting - there are always follow-up syncs and tasks people need to do. Capture motions or votes made in the meeting room to clarify for attendees and nonattendees when, why and how these decisions were made. Record votes on decisions being madeīy writing down big decisions made during the meeting, you put you and your colleagues a step ahead for any follow-up meetings. Good meeting minutes not only tell people why the meeting was held in the first place, they also jog memories of tasks that need to be done. There’s always an underlying purpose of a meeting being called. Here are a few good reasons why meeting minutes enhance the way you meet: Capture the overall purpose of meeting Not only are meeting minutes used to benchmark key topics discussed in meetings, they are also used as records so that anyone not on the call or in the meeting room can catch up on what was discussed, minus the bias and small talk. This condensed document also suggests what topics to revisit and inform future decisions in follow-up meetings. Meeting minutes allow people who didn’t attend the meeting to get caught up on what was discussed. Meeting minutes are the tangible records taken in a meeting that are used to inform attendees and nonattendees of what was discussed during the meeting and define the required next steps to keep the conversation or project on track.