How To Write Effective Meeting Minutes (With Examples)

Meeting minutes are a record of what happened in a meeting. They aren’t a transcription — they don’t cover everything that was said or done —but they highlight the key points so that everyone can remember what was discussed. Meeting minutes are also important to update people who weren’t able to attend the meeting.

Usually, an individual is assigned the responsibility of writing up the minutes of a meeting. If you’ve been assigned that task, or just wondering what meeting minutes are, then keep reading. This article will discuss why meeting minutes are important, how to write them, and even give an example.

Key Takeaways

• Good meeting minutes help companies run more effectively by establishing a record of what transpired in a meeting.

• Prepare to take meeting minutes by making sure you understand the purpose of the meeting, collecting the participants’ names, and creating a template to fill in as you take notes.

• After the meeting, type up your notes, submit them to your supervisors for approval, and then send them to the meeting participants.

What are meeting minutes?

Meeting minutes are documents that cover what happened during a meeting. Minutes focus on the key events of a meeting, paring it down to the major discussion points and decisions, along with the next steps that employees are supposed to take.

In a sense, meeting minutes are the summary of the meeting. Documenting what happened in the meeting makes it possible for those not in attendance to know what happened, and to keep records of decisions, and they can be used as a reference for those who have specific tasks they have to undertake after the meeting.

Why are meeting minutes important?

Meeting minutes are important because they help businesses operate more effectively. Meetings are regarded as the time for communication in a company to take place. If the information that’s handled during meetings becomes skewed, it’s a huge waste of time and effort.

Writing meeting minutes increases effectiveness by establishing an accurate record of what transpired. It removes the room for error that comes with not keeping documentation. Monitoring meetings with a structured approach to the discussions, and actions that follow, leads toward success.

How to write meeting minutes

The process of writing meeting minutes isn’t complicated, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have to put effort into it. Being detail-oriented will make it a lot easier, as well as taking careful notes during the meeting. As with most things, preparation and attentiveness are key.

Here are some steps to take to write effective meeting minutes:

1. Prepare beforehand. The best way to take flawless meeting minutes is by being prepared accordingly before ever walking into the meeting. Many professionals choose to arrange a template that guides them toward the information they need to collect during the meeting.

   Understanding what data you need to collect beforehand makes it much easier to distinguish when the meeting is actually happening. To help with preparations, ask your supervisors what the general objective of the meeting will be and gather knowledge about the event.<.p>

   Strong preparation work makes taking meeting minutes notes during the actual meeting more of just filling in the blanks. At the very least, have a firm understanding of the meeting’s purpose.

2. Take detailed notes during the meeting. Once you’re at the meeting, the main focus is paying attention and taking clear notes. It likely means that you won’t contribute much to the meeting itself, but your task is to record it rather than to participate.

   Here are some suggestions for making organizing your notes easier:

   • Pass around an attendance sheet. That way you don’t have to take an awkward attendance. This is doubly important if this is a larger group and you’re not sure of everyone’s name. If it’s a small group and you know everyone, you can omit this step.

   • Write down brief notes as topics shift. Make sure you keep up with your note-taking. Major topic shifts should be noted down, especially if they’re moving on from one phase of the meeting to another.

   • Put down the initials of the people who bring up major changes or topics. While it isn’t imperative to track who said what, it’s good to have an idea of whether or not the person bringing up the topic is a manager or an expert on the topic.

   • Make a note of who is assigned certain tasks. There should ideally be some tasks assigned at the end of the meeting. Keep track of what they are and who they’re assigned to. This is something that people will want to know and reference in the future.

   • Be objective. Keep your opinions out of it, as meeting minutes are supposed to be objective. Also, everyone will be able to find out who wrote the minutes of the meeting, so be sure to keep any commentary to yourself.

   • Try recording it. If you find yourself struggling to keep up with note-taking, try recording the meeting. Every smartphone has a record feature. Just make sure to get permission to do so first, as some states have laws against recording someone without their knowledge or permission.

3. Retrieve copies of all reports used at the meeting. Documents, reports, and presentations are often given during a meeting to provide more clarification for its participants. Before leaving a meeting, ask a coordinator to forward these materials to you to bring this clarity to your meeting minutes.

4. Type up the notes neatly after the meeting. After the meeting has concluded, you should have a halfway-put-together handwritten series of notes.

   With the information that was discussed freshly in mind, bring your notes, and type them up in a more organized fashion. Having a digital copy of your meeting minutes allows for easier edits. It also gives you the ability to share it with your supervisors and co-workers with the click of a button.

5. Review and send to supervisors for approval. With a proofread final copy of the meeting minutes in hand, send it off to your supervisor for approval.

   Do thorough editing before emailing your meeting minutes to your manager. Once they’ve provided you with their seal of approval, the meeting minutes are finalized to be sent out to colleagues.

   Include both attendees of the meeting and co-workers who may have been absent and need to catch up on the details.

What to include in meeting minutes

The point of writing meeting minutes is to have a record of all the important things that happened. They should be detailed enough that a co-worker who wasn’t in attendance would still understand them fully.

The following are information that needs to be included when writing effective meeting minutes:

• The purpose of the meeting

• The full names of everyone in attendance

• The date and time the meeting happened

• Details about projects, who they were assigned to, and when they are due by

• Final calls that were made on decisions during the meeting

• Any updates to the prior meeting

• Details about when the next meeting will take place when it’s relevant

Tips for writing meeting minutes

While there are standards for writing up the minutes of a meeting, there are a few things you can do to make it easier and the end result more effective. If you’ve been assigned to write up the meeting minutes, here are a few more things to keep in mind.

1. Handle meeting minutes promptly. Getting meeting minutes done quickly after the meeting’s conclusion is important for a few reasons. Firstly, the decisions that have been made just happened, so it’s unlikely that you’ve forgotten any details.

   Secondly, the information needs to be sent out to other employees promptly, especially if they’ve missed the meeting and require the details they missed.

2. Do not include random conversation. Although meetings are supposed to be targeted towards a particular focus, it’s natural for side conversations to take place occasionally.

   However, these don’t need to be included in meeting minutes. It distracts from more important information and brings in a conversation unrelated to the meeting’s purpose.

   If a conversation isn’t directly relevant to the topic of the meeting or decisions being made, leave it out of the meeting minutes.

3. Include who was given tasks. Oftentimes, the purpose of meetings is to go over a new project or plan of action that the team is going to embark on. When this is the meeting objective, supervisors will spend a chunk of time delegating tasks to specific employees.

   It’s important to include who was designated with each task or responsibility during the meeting because it avoids encountering discrepancies later.

4. Look at meeting minutes templates. One avenue for making sure your meeting minutes are formatted correctly is to look at templates online. General meeting minutes templates give a good idea about how yours should look when you’re finished and ready to send it to a supervisor for approval.

   Use templates for preparation when creating your own outline to bring into a meeting.

5. Steer clear of recording opinions. When taking down meeting minutes notes, stick to strictly the facts. While opinions may be thrown around during a meeting, that’s not the crucial information that needs to be covered in your notes.

   Opinions may lead up to an ultimate decision, but only that final call should be included in meeting minutes.

6. Focus on listening in addition to taking notes. Even though taking meeting minutes means scribbling down notes at every chance, it’s still recommended to keep your ears open and listening too.

   It’s a natural reaction to try to write every little thing that happens in a meeting when you’re the one in charge of the minutes. But that trying to do so is impossible, and will likely be detrimental rather than helpful. You also don’t want to distract the others in the meeting by constantly scribbling or typing.

Meeting minutes example

Meeting minutes template

If your employer doesn’t have a meeting minutes template, here’s one that you can use. We’ve also included an example of meeting minutes so you can see this template in action.

Final thoughts

Information that’s been discussed at a company meeting can easily get lost in translation if it’s not recorded properly. To avoid misunderstandings, many businesses employ meeting minutes to organize information.

Meeting minutes ensure that important details throughout a business meeting are kept track of for later use. These written documents are saved for reference in the future or to convey information to employees who weren’t present at the meeting.

Metting minutes FAQ

1. Who’s responsible for taking and archiving meeting minutes?

   Usually, one person is assigned the task of taking and archiving the minutes of a meeting. There isn’t necessarily a particular role this is assigned to, but it’s more often given to someone who has an administrative or secretarial role.

2. What’s the best way to store or archive meeting minutes?

   Meeting minutes can be stored either electronically or physically in a file. There are pros and cons to both. Most minutes are likely to be stored electronically nowadays, but physical files are more secure. They are, however, harder to access.

3. Why are they called meeting minutes?

   The reason that meeting minutes are called minutes rather than notes or a summary isn’t known for sure. However, the prevailing theory is that it doesn’t have anything to do with minutes, as in the measure of time, but instead comes from the Latin minuta scripta, meaning small writing.

   This comes from the fact that scribes in monestaries would write in a small script in order to save ink and parchment, and minuta turned into minute. It’s actually related to minute, as in small, rather than minute, the measure of time.

References

1. Forbes — Why Meeting Minutes – Done Right – Are the Key to Remote Productivity

2. Corporate Finance Institute — Meeting Minutes

3. MasterClass — What Are Meeting Minutes? How to Take Minutes for a Meeting

Author

Sky Ariella

Sky Ariella is a professional freelance writer, originally from New York. She has been featured on websites and online magazines covering topics in career, travel, and lifestyle. She received her BA in psychology from Hunter College.