How to take minutes

in a meeting

by Neil Shorney, Director, Navanter Knowledge Bites

Why is minute taking in meetings so difficult?

There are some tasks, which, when employees are given them, make them groan inside (or openly!) more than others. One of the worst, is minute taking for meetings. It's a task which is both difficult and often thankless. But it's also a vital part of business success - the minute taker is one of the most important people in any meeting. But more on that later.

First, let’s agree on a definition so that we know what we’re aiming at.

What is minute taking?

Minute taking is a vital task in many types of meeting in an organisation, which involves creating an accurate record of what’s happened during the meeting. And one of the biggest causes of poor minutes, is a lack of understanding of what’s actually required. Because “an accurate record” means different things to different people. It’s vital to reach a common understanding within your organisation and/or with your meeting chairperson on what’s expected of the minutes.

Should the minute taker be creating a word-by-word account of what’s been said in the meeting? Hopefully not!

Should the minute taker be writing full paragraphs of well-written prose to describe what’s happened? Possibly, but again… hopefully not!

Should the minute taker be recording just decisions and actions from the meeting? Possibly?

Should it be somewhere in between these definitions?

There's no right or wrong

The way minutes are taken needs to be agreed in advance, and should be consistent across meetings in an organisation. This has brings a couple of benefits:

All minute takers know how to take minutes in the organisation.
• Meeting minutes are consistent, so interested employees can find the information they’re looking for more easily.
• The Chair can manage the meeting in a manner which facilitates accurate and well-written minutes according to the organisation’s standards.

For me personally, a key factor in deciding what type of minutes should be taken, is that minutes should be read by people. If you’re writing meeting minutes which no-one ever looks at, then it’s wasted time and money.

Minute taker – the second most important person in the room

I'm just the minute taker.
    - Many people, Most companies, Globally.

When I work with people who need to take minutes, something which strikes me regularly is how lacking in confidence these people are. I’ve even heard of people introducing themselves to others as I’m just the minute taker. Then they tell me that when they need clarification of a point to put in the minutes, they’re too timid to speak up during the meeting.

A minute taker is the second most important person in any meeting. The most important is the Chair, but the minute taker is a close second. Because the minute taker is the person who is responsible for creating an accurate record of what happened during the meeting.

If it isn't in the minutes, it didn't happen.
    - Fact.

This record of what happened during the meeting is the only way we know what was and wasn’t decided. If there are mistakes or omissions in the meeting minutes, then a company is operating in chaos. If meeting participants don’t have confidence in the quality of the meeting minutes, then they won’t have confidence in the decisions that were taken during the meeting.

Minute takers should go on a minute taking training course

Now we’ve recognised the importance of meeting minutes, we have to wonder why more organisations don’t provide minute taking training to their employees – both those who take minutes regularly, and those who only do so from time to time. By learning how minutes should be taken, the minutes will be much more usable, and the employee will have much more confidence in the whole process… which in turn leads to better, more complete minutes.

How do you take meeting minutes?

Now we know a little more about them, let’s look at how to acurately take the minutes in a meeting.

We can break this down into 3 areas:

1. Skills needed by the minute taker
2. What to include in the minutes
3. Tips for great minute taking

Let's finish off by summarising the key elements in each of these areas...

Skills needed by a minute taker

To be an effective minute taker, the following skills are helpful:

• The ability to listen as an observer, without getting sucked into the conversation.
• Confidence to speak up when something hasn’t been understood, especially when taking minutes in a technical meeting.
• Listening skills – and being able to pin-point key messages within a complex conversation.
• Fluency in the technical language of the meeting.
• Organisational skills.
• Accuracy.
• Professionalism, to express ability and competence.
• Technical ability to use a computer, particularly word processing software, is increasingly becoming important.

What to include in meeting minutes

We discussed earlier how the actual format and content of the minutes should be agreed internally in advance of any meeting. However, aside from this, there are certain items which should always be included in the final minutes document:

• The date and time of the meetings.
• Meeting location, or, if taking
minutes in virtual meetings, the platform used.
• Names of meeting attendees.
• Names of those unable to attend.
• Names of those standing in for someone else, i.e. ‘Jane Jones, representing John Smith’.
• Items on the original agenda.
• Any additional topics which were introduced during the meeting.

And then the two most important items:

• Decisions made, and
• Actions agreed.

Tips for great minute taking

Here is a selection of Knowledge Bites’ top tips for taking minutes at a meeting:

• Be early – no-one wants to rush in after the meeting has started.
• Choose your seat first and put your equipment on the table – ideally next to the Chair, but round the corner of
the table so that you have eye contact.
• Ensure the agenda is well-written and timed – that will help you to stay on track with your minute taking.
• Get the names of all attendees, and wri
te a ‘name map’ on a piece of paper if they don’t have name cards.
• Stay focused on what’s being said.
• Take a break when everyone else does – you need to be able to maintain your concentration.
• Write down key points and leave space beneath to fill in details as they come up.
• Record all decisions and actions.
• Ask ‘is that a decision/action’ if it’s unclear.
• Write the minutes up as soon as possible after the meeting.
• Schedule an hour after every meeting (if possible) to write the minutes up.
• Get the minutes approved by the Chairperson before distributing them.

To close...

So, I hope you’re feeling a little more confident now about how to take minutes, and that you’ve realised your own importance as the minute taker. If you’d like to look into this further, get in touch and we’ll be pleased to help.

To learn more about how to take minutes in a meeting, check out our How To Take Meeting Minutes training course. Or why not download our list of minute-taking vocabulary to liven up your minutes and improve the accuracy of the minutes you produce?