They're an official record of the meeting for its participants and a source of information for teammates who were unable to attend. They are meant to be a permanent written record for future references about decisions made. It's often useful as a back-up document.
Despite the name, meeting minutes don't have to be a record of every single "minute." On the contrary, it is vital to learn how cut through the noise and bring the most relevant information to your document.
Meetings are essential to move things forward in organizations. But they're also infamous for their inefficiency: according to Doodle 2019 state of meeting report, the cost of poorly handled meetings in 2019 will reach $399 billion in the U.S solely.
That's why learning how to write effective meeting minutes is vital to leverage all the efforts spent in meetings and make your team or company thrive.
We've put together a step-by-step guide for you to improve your note-taking skills and run more productive meetings.
To write effective meeting minutes you should include:
Efficiency & pro tips:
A great meeting starts before you actually start writing minutes.
To ensure maximum efficiency you should always clarify what is expected of you as the note-taker, especially if you are new to it.
It's also important to check with the meeting owner that the meeting agenda is set in advance. Not only is it the path to running effective team meetings but it's a great way to be more efficient:
That way, when you actually get to the meeting, you're ready to write down the important stuff.
Related content: discover how to run effective meetings with Slite
Depending on the type of meeting you'll want to structure your meeting minutes differently.
Below is an example of minutes items for an informal meeting. You can also discover fully customizable meetings notes templates.
You should wrap-up your notes right after the meeting, while it's still fresh in your mind:
Share the meeting minutes
You made it! This last step is crucial: make sure to share your meeting minutes with all meeting attendees and relevant stakeholders.
Furthermore, you can choose to host the meeting minutes in a collaborative tool like Slite so that everyone has easy access to it.
Discover more about how Slite can help you run great meetings with your team or try it for free and start creating your first notes.
Productive and effective team meetings are not only good meeting minutes: you'll need to ensure that the right people have access to the right knowledge before, during and after your meetings and can easily collaborate on it.
Slite will help you make your team meetings better: