The importance of minute taking at meetings.

The importance of minutes for your meetings.

For most businesses, important meetings take place every day or at least every week. During these, some huge decisions are made which may involve a lot of precious time or a big financial risk. Some may change people’s careers / lives forever. With a lot of important topics discussed at these meetings it’s no wonder many individuals hold minute taking as a high priority. 

In our first blog we discussed the importance of setting an agenda, to ensure there is a sense of direction to your meeting and to allow all participants to prepare for the topics that will be discussed. This week, we will look at the importance of effective minute taking and the advantage it can have for your organisation, by following a few small steps.

What do minutes generally include? Typically, they are the events of a meeting, which should include a list of participants, keep a record of the topics discussed and any decisions that are made regarding the issues you are trying to address. Why is it so important you take note of this? There are several benefits to taking minutes and it is very important for staying on track.

One of the most recognised books written on the meeting management industry is “Meeting Together” by Lois Graessle & George Gawlinski. Throughout this book of practical tips, there is one principle that really stands out to me “The Meeting Continuum 40:20:40 is the full course of the meeting process, in which preparation and follow-through are as important as the meeting itself”. 

This highlights that minute taking is very important for preparation of the next meeting and following up on decisions that were made in the last one. Employees who are both present and absent during a meeting depend on the meeting minutes and it has several benefits; 

1. It acts as a reminder 
2. It becomes your guide
3. Absenteeism 

Not taking minutes can be very costly in both time and money for your business. Meeting minutes provide a written record of what was discussed and agreed, so you and your colleagues have the same recollections from the meeting and the same ideas of what was agreed on. If two colleagues have a different recollection of what was agreed - it may lead to conflict within your organisation or worst case if the minutes are not written, you may end up having to repeat the meeting to solve the problem. Therefore, getting to the habit of taking written notes is definitely a good idea for your business. 

Again, taking inspiration from the “The Meeting Continuum 40:20:40” theory, meeting minutes make the follow through of the meeting a much easier and smoother process. It is important to make sure that the participants act on promises made and decisions that were taken. The minutes of the last meeting make it easier to communicate and reflect on what you learnt. As a result, you can choose to make changes that will make your future meetings even better. 

The last thing you or your staff wants to do at a company meeting is to take the minutes, but it’s an important and a very necessary task.

This article was published by QuickMinutes.com, stay tuned for many more articles in the coming weeks on various different aspects of meeting management. If you would like to know more, please do not hesitate to contact us at info@quickminutes.com or check out our website QuickMinutes.com to find out how we can help you and your organisation improve the efficiency of your meetings.

Alternatively, check out this short demo clip to see how our Agenda builder and Minute builder can ensure you have more productive and efficient meetings. The minute builder allows you to quickly record meeting notes and produce a professional document once published.  The minute builder will come pre populated with the meeting location, date and time.  The minute builder will automatically attach the minutes of the last meeting.  The topics from the Agenda will also pre populate in the Minute builder in the same format.  The Minute builder allows you to rearrange topics easily with click and drag feature.  Here you can save and close the minutes, preview minutes, share minutes for approval or publish the minutes to all attendees.

QuickMinutes is a specialised meeting management application for enterprise that streamlines the administrative process in running a meeting. QuickMinutes exploits a niche sub-segment and employs a Software as a Service (Saas) business model. Currently scaling with strong prospect.