Your project leader requests the entire team to gather at the meeting room later in the afternoon. You’ve just been tasked with taking notes for the meeting, and you already feel yourself panicking for what’s to come. But before you come up with a lame excuse to skip the entire thing, it’s important to remember that preparing meeting minutes doesn’t have to be a daunting task for anyone. By applying the right strategies, you can prepare effective meeting minutes in no time. And we will show you how you can make it effectively, through our helpful guide below.
A meeting minutes or minutes is a documented record of what was talked or transpired during a meeting. The content usually containing one meeting minutes includes the action or decision taken during the said assembly. To simply put, meeting minutes keep a record that captures the agreed outcomes of a meeting, which can also be used for follow-up purposes. Additionally, a meeting minute document typically is recorded by an assistant or secretary.
Before the meeting begins, it’s always a good idea to understand the type of information you’re required to document first. While your organization may have specific content and format to follow, meeting minutes are generally created the same way. Without further ado, feel free to refer to our tips below on how to create effective meeting minutes.
Bear in mind that your meeting minutes will serve as a reference for future endeavors. This may also serve as evidence to resolve any disputes or cases of forgetfulness, that may occur later on. By indicating the date and time of the meeting, you can formulate a timeline for these events for a more accurate report.
During board meetings, you’re likely to find a few empty seats around the table. This won’t be a problem, as long as these absences are recorded in the document. The meeting minutes should also serve as an attendance sheet to take note of who was present and absent at the time. It is also possible to share the information from the meeting minutes with those who weren’t able to attend to maintain transparency within the organization.
In writing effective meeting minutes, you also need to remember that maximum efficiency needs to be expected as a note-taker. Meaning, before your meeting transpires, you have to keep in touch with the meeting agenda so that you can efficiently steer the path of writing your meeting minutes. For you to make it happen, it is best if you prepare a separate outline for your meeting’s agenda.
It is already given that meeting minutes are an essential part of every assembly, especially in the business setup. Meeting minutes serve as a channel for every organization to keep processes move forward in the long run. However, despite its essentiality, there is a study gathered by Doodle.com that meeting minutes are known to be inefficient for most organizations, for the cost of mishandled meeting reports estimates at around $399 billion in the United States alone. With that said, make sure that when you write your meeting minutes, be cautious about every aspect of your meeting. See to it that you include all the actions are taken or those that were agreed to be taken. You might as well include the voting outcomes, motions taken or rejected, items to be held over, and the date and time for the next meeting.
Minutes writing is an important and often necessary task for many organizations. Not only does it communicate the facts of a meeting, but it may also provide legal protection to prove that a certain action did happen. Good meeting minutes can even map out a plan for the action items to help get the work done and later keep those who were unable to attend the meeting updated on the latest happenings within the team.
Meeting minutes typically vary according to the group or region creating the document. Some organizations even have standard templates for recording important meetings that must be followed. However, below are two of the most commonly used types of meeting minutes.
For the minutes to be an accurate reflection of what took place during the meeting, there are certain elements that must be included in the document. Although the order of these components may vary, it generally consists of the following:
Meeting minutes are written to capture the essential information of a meeting in the most comprehensible way possible. Though preparing and taking these minutes may seem like a nerve-wracking experience, it doesn’t have to be with the help of a few techniques. Get started with the meeting minutes for your organization using these templates and examples today!
