How to write minutes of meeting

How to write minutes of meeting

Minutes of meeting (MOM) are instrumental to formally record discussions and decisions made in a forum about a predefined list of issues.

MEETING MINUTES. Location, attendees, communication protocol, form to be used, the use itself of the minutes and the repository to store it are all variable elements, which depend on the significance of the meeting in subject and on the business we are talking about.

The intent of the post is to provide few general guidelines to draw up the summary of a business meeting, according to a template that you will find at the bottom of the page.

The main purpose in collecting input and output of a meeting, particularly if it is supposed to continue after a first session, is basically to share a document listing all the agreed items, (or otherwise the different points of view) and the subsequent actions, if any.

How to split the minutes

Usually, a set of minutes is drafted real time during the discussion, printed upon completion of the meeting, and signed in final version after review and correction of mistakes or omissions. A scan copy of the signed document can be circulated in un-modifiable electronic format like a PDF.

Cover sheet: this is the section where the main references are to be shown. It needs to facilitate the storage of the document and its retrieval at a later stage. Therefore, all the necessary information are to be included in order to allow a correct index and categorization.

From experience, the following sections are the minimum to be included:

• Company/organization name and logo: whether it is on the top or somewhere in background, the cover sheet needs to bring out the organization owner of the document.
• Title: it need to recall the project name and the event/milestone for which people are meeting. As example: Project X - Financial reconciliation meeting @ Q3 2012.
• Location: place where the meeting is held (not the place where the company is)
• Date: simply put the dates of the meeting. A time frame is enough, if the meeting is longer than 1 day.
• Protocol/Reference: depending on the communication plan, the organization may want to include an identification number of the MOM. If this is the case, there must be in the project repository, for example, an index to calculate the right ID to be used, based on the predecessors already booked for other documents. It is definitely worth to include in the form such field, even in absence of said index; a new ID can be created at spot basis.
• Agenda: the meeting is, most of the times, preceded by an invitation including an agenda. It is therefore expected that the meeting will be led to cover the points highlighted therein and it is expected, in consequence, that the MOM will include that agenda in the coversheet.
• Signatures: this is a fundamental field, being the area where the representatives of the parties attending the meeting have to ratify the agreement, or the correct summary of the respective positions about the issues discussed.
• Attendees/recipients lists: here we list all the participants, who is absent, any guest involved. A best practice is to include, and distinguish in a separate list, also the people to whom the MOM has to be circulated (recipients), which is generally broader than the list of the people attending the session. Due to the fact that the attendees/recipient lists can be quite extended, it is suggested to put them in the second page rather than "compressing" everything in the cover sheet, this just for a better reading of the MOM.

Body: this is the section where the content of the discussion has to be summarized.

The summary can be outlined as a table describing each topic in a row. Unless the attendees have to handle a single item, it is worth to identify each section and the relevant topics with a numerical and progressive #ID, which can be easily indicated in the first column left side (i.e 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and then 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 and so on). A column to filter the topics based on their status (open/closed) is extremely useful for following up.

Here below a picture to make clear what I mean with the above:

As opposed to a table, the body can be also compiled as a sequential collection of the talking points. 

My recommendation is to select the most suitable form based on the circumstances: a MOM which is going to be a legal document, to be integrated into a contract, has to include IDs for each point and mention the parties supporting those items. 

It is likely that in the future the paragraphs of that MOM shall be extensively referenced somewhere else and it is worth to avoid the burdensome exercise of copying/pasting everything not numerically identified.

Either way, since the MOM is prepared with the aim to make the notes clear for everyone (including people not attending the meeting) the topics have to be recorded in such a way that the body is not overloaded with useless information. Agreements and decisions are to be wrote down, while it is highly recommended to avoid a verbatim summary.

It has to be remarked that in case some actions are identified as necessary to address specific topics, the MOM needs to track them.

As shown above in the picture, few columns are to be added to describe them, to name the individuals in charge for them and the deadlines for their closure. Where a date should not be agreed during the meeting a "TBD" can be indicated in the relevant column (consider the possibility to agree on the earliest deadline to define the missing closure date).

The list of all the action items can be then located at the bottom of MOM, prior to the attachments or as an attachment itself.