Any tips re taking minutes

InReality

Doing a lot of this in a new job and seem to be missing things said a lot .

Anything I could do to improve - online advice seems bit obvious and not helping.

_Brian

InReality wrote: »

Doing a lot of this in a new job and seem to be missing things said a lot .

Anything I could do to improve - online advice seems bit obvious and not helping.

I think the best advice I got was that minutes of a meeting are NOT a transcript of a meeting, totally different.

So, rather than trying to record every word spoken, your job is to capture the key discussions, decisions taken and AR's arising from the meeting.

If your really struggling maybe a dictaphone would help.

Hoofball

Other tips that I've picked over a long long time of minuting meetings, note that some of these are probably too obvious:

I shorten a lot of words which helps to write faster but only do this if they are regular words such as tech for technical, AP for action point, def for definite etc etc. Shorten sentences and leave out adverbs etc. It sounds silly and obvious but this saves a lot of writing, for example: if the longhand version was: "John Smith said the current technical problems with project 1234 will delay the schedule by 3 months." I'd have written: "JS -> curr probs proj 1234 delay 3 mths" or something similar. This will help you capture more.

As Brian said, don't try to capture everything that's said because you won't be able to do it. The minutes are not a full blown transcript of the meeting, you only need to capture the major discussion points and what was agreed.

If the people in the meeting go off on a long tangent I'll wait for a natural break in the discussion and ask the person to give me a two-three line summary of what was discussed, especially if it's a detailed technical discussion, and that is what I put in the minutes. This means a three line summary rather than paragraphs of back and forth discussion which isn't really too important.

Depending on the type of meeting I'll either write my notes on paper or type through it in a word document up on the screen and just clean up the word doc afterwards. If you find that you are writing all the time then you won't be able to pay full attention to what is actually being discussed. But don't worry about it too much, it's definitely a learned skill to be able to chair and lead a meeting and still take effective notes.

One other thing is to try and write up the minutes straight after the meeting if you can as the discussion will still be fresh in your mind and you will remember other things that you may not have written down.

HTH.

The GMan

?

hmmm

If you're "missing things" I suspect that's because your minutes are being reviewed after the meeting, and someone else is criticising them. People can have different views of minutes - most want major discussion points, some want little or nothing, others want almost a transcript.

First find out what your boss expects to see in a set of minutes - work from there with the excellent suggestions above. Ask for a set of minutes from another meeting & copy the style and the level of detail.

ifah

Have a look at Mind maps - I use them a lot - make it very easy to join up topics etc and very quick to use.

Mrs OBumble

Take a laptop in, and type minutes as the meeting progresses. Keep a pen and paper there in case of technical issues, but try to minimize what writing up needs to be done after the meeting (apart from spelling and grammar).

Prepare the document before the meeting - have sections for Invited, Attendees, Apologies, Agenda, Decisions, Actions, Notes.

Fill in the first four beforehand (obviously updating Attendees as the meeting progresses).
Also map out a likely structure for the discussion (based on what you know

Type points as people say them, and then delete the irrelevant / changed-their-mind / decided against that bits afterwards (ideally as the decisions are made - or during later gaps in the meeting).

If possible, project the minutes on to the wall (or people's own laptops), so they can see what you're minuting at the time. That way, they can make on-the-spot corrections. (Or have an on-the-spot fight if there are different interpretations!).

Work on your touch typing skills.
Put common words / phrases from your industry into the AutoCorrect list.
Learn about the AutoText function.
Put styles onto keyboard shorcuts.

OU812

minutes.io

InReality

Thanks very much for all the advice.
Yes it was the comments by others after minutes are circulated that's was the problem.
Will try and improve

skallywag

I would normally share the minutes I take with everyone afterwards, and openly ask for critique / additions etc. It happens quite regularly that someone will write back to me with a point or two, after which I'll send the corrected minutes out. As long as you are not missing some really key points then I would not overly worry about this. You will also improve with practice.

ongarboy

skallywag wrote: »

I would normally share the minutes I take with everyone afterwards, and openly ask for critique / additions etc. It happens quite regularly that someone will write back to me with a point or two, after which I'll send the corrected minutes out. As long as you are not missing some really key points then I would not overly worry about this. You will also improve with practice.

Agreed, when I've had to minute meetings, when I've circulated them after, I add a line advising "If I have misrepresented any of the items discussed, please do not hesitate to contact me for clarfication".

The advice the other posters have given should help you a lot too. As you get more familiar with the industry you are in, a lot of the topic points/acronyms etc will become less double dutch and easier to absorb and relay as you minute. If you feel you've missed something critical as the meeting occurs, ask for clarfication there and then - obviously,this is not an option you should use constantly throughout the meeting however...

Alkers

If you're not familiar with the names of everyone in attendance, draw a quick sketch of the table layout with each persons name and where they are sitting and assign a number to each person. Then you can attribute what each person says to their number in the notes and tidy up everything afterwards.