Meetings in general are not very popular, but being responsible for the meeting minutes is even worse. Because taking notes and working out the meeting minutes is such an unpopular activity it is often ignored. And not having meeting minutes is exactly one of the reasons why so many meetings are unproductive!
Why Meeting Minutes?
Meeting minutes help the participants (and other interested parties) to remember what was discussed, what was decided and which tasks need to be performed. If you don’t have any record of your meeting, it will be impossible to track any progress and you may discuss issues repeatedly, because it was not clear what was decided previously.
In addition having meeting minutes will prevent confusion, because one participant may have a very different recollection of the discussion than another. Distributing the minutes swiftly after the meeting gives participants the opportunity to respond and correct misunderstandings. Taking concise meeting notes also requires the participants to close each topic with a clear decision and/or task.
So who should take the meeting notes?
In many meetings participants take their own notes and there is no central document. For the reasons above we know that is not a good solution. We believe that there should be only one note taker, creating one document. As a matter of fact we even believe that other than the note taker no-one in the meeting should have a laptop or tablet in front of him/her, so each participant can optimally focus on the actual discussion.
Preferably the note taker is not an active participant in the discussion, so he/she can be impartial and can focus on what others say. We realize that in many cases this is not practical in today’s world. In the past each manager above a certain level had his or her secretary but those days are over. In many teams the responsibility to take the notes and work out the meeting minutes turns from person to person from meeting to meeting. This is a fair solution and creates real team spirit.
In reality it often happens that the chairman or the person who calls the meeting also makes the notes. While this may not be the perfect scenario, using an efficient tool like MeetingKing makes this a very workable solution. Many MeetingKing users do this successfully.
How MeetingKing can help.
Making the notes during the meeting is probably not the worst part, working out those notes into a presentable meeting minutes document is the part that is really detested. It takes to much time, it is postponed till right before the next meeting and for that reason is often incorrect.
In MeetingKing you can jot down short notes and save them as a note, decision or task. You do not have to create a Word document and type the title, the list of participants, the date, time location etc, MeetingKing can copy that from your meeting request. While taking the notes you can use your agenda (make sure to check out the ready to use templates) as the basis for your notes. More on writing meeting minutes with MeetingKing.
At the end of the meeting all you have to do is click the email button and everyone has professionally formatted meeting minutes in their inbox. If participants have a different recollection of the discussion, they can immediately react (there is a comment function). Tasks are already added to each participant’s tasks list. In the next meeting the automatically generated agenda starts with an update on the tasks from previous meetings.
If you are not using MeetingKing yet, start now and see how easy it is.
Happy Meetings!
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