Tell me if this sounds familiar: You’re in a meeting, ideas are flying, plans are being made, and everyone’s energized and excited about putting ideas into action. After a productive session, you leave the conference room and head back to your desk to catch up on the emails and calls you’ve missed. A couple of hours later, you shift your focus back to the project from the meeting, and you blank. What was the date of that key milestone? Who was it that the client needed to connect us with in another department? We were going to include which steps in the outline? Why didn’t I take better notes? Wait, who did take notes?
We’re big believers in tracking our efforts for and with our clients which is why one of our best practices at CSR is to have a team member scribe and capture minutes and action items at every single meeting. While it may seem excessive, scribing a meeting instead of just taking notes provides support long after the meeting when there is a question on something discussed.
The second benefit to having a designated team member scribe the meeting is that all other meeting attendees can be fully present in the conversation. Without the worry of forgetting a great idea, or remembering to follow up with someone, conversation flows more organically.
Our template for minutes consistently includes:
Cover page
meeting type
attendees
date
client’s mission, vision, and values
Topic one, two, etc.:
reason for discussing/objective that it’s tied to
progress and/or obstacles
action and owner
Updated previous meeting’s action items
task
owner
due date
status
After the meeting, we distribute the minutes to all attendees for reference, making sure to call out any immediate action items. Not only are meeting minutes a great accountability tool, they can be also be a helpful place to start when constructing the next meeting’s agenda.
Interested in learning more about our process? Contact us here, we’d love to hear from you.
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