The proverb in the title is quite old but in the age of information technology even more relevant than ever. Nothing is more important than gathering, maintaining and managing information. I like using the proverb as it describes the importance of recording data in a written form. We all should be aware that a meeting without minutes did not occur, a decision not documented is worthless, a process not well documented will never work.
For me that saying held absolutely true as I observed over the years that one of the most important tools in business are meeting minutes. In almost all instances where no minutes existed it led to some negative consequences, be it repeated discussions, lack of ownership, no execution of action items and confusion, often resulting in additional alignment efforts.
Once I understood this, I made it a point to always write minutes. Nowadays, I also write minutes for meetings where I am not the owner as it is simply an extremely powerful tool. Let me explain why you should start taking ownership and write notes for all your meetings.
The purpose of meeting minutes are:
- Documentation
- Document discussed topic and outcome
- Document participation
- Document consensus or conflict
- Reduction of unnecessary discussion
- Minutes help to avoid repeated discussion on the same topic
- They can be used to inform future related decisions
- Inform and update people that were not able to participate
- Drive execution
- They allow follow up on assigned action items
- Documented ownership & responsibility of action items
- Provide legal and company political protection
The above benefits speak for themselves, nevertheless I would like to emphasise a couple of points. In all big companies you unfortunately have quite a high amount of office politics. What I found is that if you write minutes it can help to influence the direction of the outcome better as you control the narrative to a certain extend. It also gives you good political protection as the interactions are documented and you can pull out what was agreed if someone does not hold up their end of the bargain. This is of course also valid for your action items, so stay true to your word and execute on what you say.
Aside from the political I found it quite helpful to share the minutes during the meetings while I write them. This might be specific to the often technical nature of my meetings but I observed that it helps if people can see, in a written form on screen, what we discuss and decide. It also helps speeding up the minute writing process as people will correct you in case something is captured incorrectly. The downside here is you need to be able to handle the meeting and write minutes in parallel. This works well for me but I know a lot of colleagues struggle with this. In that case just take bulletpoints and write the minutes afterwards.
Options & timing for taking notes
Let’s discuss the how and when to actually write them. I like to write minutes directly in the meeting. I can have an active discussion and summarise what is discussed pretty accurately. This is a skill I developed over the years and I cannot expect other people to do the same. In fact I know that most people really struggle doing this. In that case use some of the options below to get good results:
Option 1: Ask an additional person that is not part of the active discussion to join and take notes. It is important that the note taker understands the content of the discussion. Instruct the person what to focus on and to note down decisions as well. The main problem with this method is that it is sometimes hard to find an additional person that can join the meeting just for note taking.
Option 2: Note only bullet points during the discussion. Once the meeting is over review them and create proper minutes out of the bullets. The biggest challenge with this method is that you might miss important points. Especially if you are not able to write the minutes immediately after the meeting you might loose some content.
Option 3: Before the meeting starts ask the participants to take notes when they are currently not actively discussing. Once the meeting comes to an end, collect the notes and consolidate them to create holistic minutes.
Option 4: Record the meeting. This is mainly an option for online meetings via Teams, Zoom, etc. The main disadvantage here is that many people do not like recordings and it can hinder open discussions. Additionally I think it is too much time effort to replay another meeting to review a discussion, especially if minutes are available.
Before I sent out minutes I often put in a sentence saying: “In case you feel I have missed something or reflected it incorrectly feel free to correct it.” This ensures that if no one replies the minutes cannot be contested as all participants implicitly accept them if no other feedback is given.
Play around with the options and figure out what works best for you.
Tools to write minutes
Before you go into a meeting to take notes, think about which tool you want to use for writing and then later distributing the notes.
Pen & Paper is of course always a valid method, however I found that I write faster on a computer and that if I want to distribute it to meeting participants it is a pain in the butt to do so. Therefore I use Email or other tools like Word, Google Docs or Notion.
If you have online meetings the easiest thing you can do for note distribution is to reply to all participants via Email and put your notes there (this is the variant I use most often).
In case of reoccurring meetings I sometimes use other tools, as it is good to have maybe also a history of the previous meetings and other additional details. Looking this up in past emails can be bothersome so I often end up using the build in MS Teams functions for note taking or I create a OneNote page where I take the notes and share it with the participants.
There are many other options available nowadays. To mention a view:
- Google Docs ← Great for collaboration and writing notes at the same time
- Office 365 – Word ← With the newer word versions collaborative notes are also possible
- MS OneNote ← I use OneNote heavily for my internal notes, but sharing is not as convenient as you can only share your complete workbook. So you likely have to create several.
- Notion ← Awesome tool! I use it for all my private notes and writing. However I cannot use it for work as it would go agains my companies policies.
- MS Teams Minutes ← Since most of our meetings are based on MS teams I often use this feature for repeating meetings
- and more… (google is your friend)
Review what works best, play around with it. Once you determined which method is best I recommend to stick to it as it makes it easier to find your notes and gives you a good structure.
Preparation
Depending on the meeting and how used you are to taking notes it makes sense to prepare yourself. Especially in case of high profile meetings I would recommend to:
- Familiarise yourself with the Agenda and planned content of the meeting so that you understand the context
- Research the topics, if you are new to them, so that you have a basic understanding
- Be a few minutes early to the meeting (either physical or remote)
- Prepare before the meeting your note taking tools
- Clarify if required the expectations from the meeting owner upfront → in some cases the minutes need to come from the organizer
- Prepare the list of participants so that you can easily check mark who was present and who did not join the meeting
Content and structure
The content and structure are the heart of the minutes and the most critical aspect. The better and more precise you take notes the easier future discussions and decisions will be. ****
In the end you will have to play around with how you structure the minutes to find your own style that works best. For me the below structure worked extremely well and you can copy it to start with:
- Action items & Owners Action items and respective owners are usually discussed later in the meetings. However, for the minutes I always put them to the beginning as the owners need to see the assignments as fast as possible.
- Summary of the meeting Short summary of the meeting purpose and content. Example: Purpose of the meeting is to review and agree which storage type is more efficient for scenario X.
- Summary of the decisions Short summary of the decisions and proposals made. Capture the essentials and key points. Example: It is agreed to use storage type A for scenario X as it is the most cost efficient and reliable solution. All new deployments will be based on this starting from xx.xx.2022
- Details In the detail section I typically document more details of the discussion. Focus on the main points and especially on critics or feedbacks when ideas or proposals are discussed.
- List of participants Note down who participated and who was missing. Often I push this to the end of the minutes or leave it out depending on the meetings. The participants that did not join know it and if they have questions should reach out and react to the minutes.
In terms on of content try focus on the essentials. Describe clear and precise what is discussed, decisions, disagreements, points of contention, points of agreement, action items and participant.
What is your experience with taking notes? Do you have interesting observations or techniques? Let me hear about it!