Meeting notes don’t get much respect or appreciation, but they have saved me or my company a number of times. This experience has made me a dedicated notes taker at every business meeting I’ve attended for many years now.
So how have meeting notes saved me or my company?
By compensating for imperfect recollections – One story that comes to mind is from my days as a Sales Director. One of my team members was vehemently against entering meeting notes in our newly installed Customer Relationship Management tool. I made a deal with her to promise to record all her sales calls for three months, capturing key discussion points. If taking notes hadn’t proved their value in that amount of time, she could stop. After just a few short weeks, she had a customer accuse her of not following through on a request. She looked up her notes and discovered that he had specifically told her not to follow through until he confirmed, which he never had. Instead of being furious, the client apologized profusely. We got the sale and my team member ended up winning “Salesperson of the Year”. I’d made a convert to note-taking and she never complained again.
By satisfying audit requirements – When I joined a major insurance company in their Capital Markets Hedging group, we could be subject to audits by the Federal Reserve Board. As a project manager, I kept notes from every meeting, detailing all the technological and actuarial decisions. In many cases, they were completely Greek to me, but I documented each one. During our audit, we had all the answers we needed to pass with flying colors. I’ve had similar experiences with ISO audits and internal audits. Just being able to show that all the notes exist can be sufficient to keep the auditors from smelling blood.
By capturing action items for follow up – We’re all crazy busy, often having so many meetings that there is no time to actually do any work. But the meetings are a waste of time if we don’t follow up on all the open actions. Whether is it deliverables promised to clients, information needed before the next meeting, or internal tasks to be completed, the action items captured in meeting minutes can be used as a gentle prod or a cudgel to ensure that things get done. Just make sure that there is a single owner. Also, prioritizing tasks (low, medium, and high) and tracking task status (not started, in progress, done and on hold) can help people prioritize how they spend their time. For all the times my personal task list has numbered over 60 items, understanding my management’s priorities has been the thing that has helped me remain both sane and of value to my organization. I’m not distracted by the latest shiny request and, eventually, everything gets followed up on, or it gets cancelled as no longer needed.
By using the right tool for the job – Email, while better than nothing, is actually a terrible tool for capturing meeting minutes. Once done and distributed, they get buried in folders, never to surface again. The key is to use the right tool for the purpose. In my last few companies, we’ve used Confluence for meeting notes, and that has allowed for searchable shared minutes that can be exported to PDF for external meeting attendees. Tasks captured during the meetings show up on individual task lists. For project management, JIRA is great for building your product backlog and tracking the progress from “to do” to “done.” In customer relationship management, Salesforce.com is a great tool for tracking each email, call and meeting. Just be consistent, and the benefits will make themselves clear over time.
By training me to be a better listener, a better writer and a better leader – Taking good notes isn’t about capturing every single word anyone says. It is about capturing the information that matters – requirements, options, decisions, actions. This requires that you hone your listening skills and your knowledge of the subjects being discussed. It is also about facilitating the meeting and keeping to the agenda, which improves your ability to prioritize and manage both your time and the time of others. It is about being a better leader and giving everyone – not just the grandstanders – a chance to speak. Most importantly, it is about writing the notes so that they make sense to someone who didn’t attend the meeting. This will make you both a better business and technical writer.
So, while they aren’t even mildly exciting to take or read, accurate and complete meeting minutes can be your savior when you least expect it. Like my recalcitrant sales rep, try it for three months so that you, too, can come to appreciate the value.