Meeting minutes are essential for documenting your meetings to reference what was discussed, who attended, and any follow-up actions. Meeting minutes also allow team members to check that the details of the meeting were documented accurately and that their feedback was received by everyone present. You should take the minutes of every meeting in a project.
No matter how brief or informal. Meetings can be great for keeping people informed about progress and asking questions, but they become meaningless if you don’t have documentation of all meetings. Read on to learn more about how to write meeting minutes in successful projects:
What should you record in the meeting minutes?
In a meeting, you should jot down everything that was discussed, from the main points of the discussion to the specific items on your project to-do list. Use a meeting to note anything important enough to record: decisions, commitments, meeting minutes, and notes. If you have a project management tool that allows you to generate meeting minutes, you can use those. If not, use a pen and paper to write down everything discussed during the meeting.
It would be best if you also took notes on the issues discussed, along with your opinion and any feedback you receive. You might even take a quick poll of the meeting to see if there are any questions or concerns that are not being addressed.
Use real-time to write meeting minutes.
You can record meeting minutes in real-time, meaning that you write everything down as it happens. This is useful because you don’t have to rely on your memory afterward. It is also useful to practice writing by hand, as most digital tools have some formality that may get lost when you have to write with a pen and paper.
However, even if you write down everything as it is said, you shouldn’t trust your memory entirely. It would help if you took notes on your meeting minutes, either on paper or in the project management tool you use. This creates a written record that you can refer to later if you forget certain points or don’t recall certain names.
Update your meeting minutes after the meeting
While you should use the meeting minutes to reflect what was discussed, you should also add anything that needs to be added or removed from the meeting. This includes new information or items that you removed from the meeting agenda.
When you are writing the meeting minutes, you should include these details: the date and time of the meeting, the participants, who proposed the items to be added or removed from the agenda, if you made any decisions, and a brief overview of the meeting. You can also include other information in the meeting minutes, such as the name of the person performing the task, the expected time of completion, and a description of the task.
Document items from your stand-up meeting
Using daily stand-up meetings, you can document the items discussed and any commitments made in the meeting minutes. You can also use your daily stand-up meeting to inform team members of the meeting minutes you’ll be taking. You can use daily stand-up meetings to quickly inform each other of progress and discuss any issues that need attention.
For example, if a person is stuck on a task, you can use the stand-up meeting to request that that person be pulled off the task and assigned to another one. As daily stand-up meetings are informal, you can also use them to check in with team members. You can ask them how work is going, what issues they are having, and what they would like to see completed.
Conclusion
With the help of all these tips, you can now write meeting minutes for a successful project. You can also learn more of this from experienced project management companies like Green Projects Consulting. Meeting minutes can be useful for documenting the meeting, including notes about the attendees, decisions, and topics discussed. You can also use meeting minutes to record commitments made and items that need to be added to the project to-do list. You should also update meeting minutes with any changes to remain accurate. If you follow these guidelines, you can write meeting minutes for a successful project.