Taking meeting notes is an essential way to capture and retain project information so that leaders and team members can identify problems, record actions, and ensure that work runs smoothly.
Taking good meeting notes can make a big difference in the productivity of your meeting. Here are 9 tips for taking better notes during meetings:
1. Use a note-taking tool
There are many free note-taking tools that offer a way to capture, organize and share meeting notes in an easy and efficient way. Craft's free meeting notes template will quickly get you started.
2. Plan and write a meeting agenda
Kick off your meeting notes before the meeting event starts with an agenda. This will keep your discussions focussed, allow you to cover all important points, enable people to prepare, and ensure conversation doesn’t go off on time-wasting tangents. Get more tips here: How to write an effective meeting agenda.
3. List questions or points to raise
Try to get everyone to read the meeting agenda and any required material beforehand and have any questions ready in advance of the meeting. Encourage people to add questions to the meeting note agenda prior to the event.
4. Listen actively and allow others enough time to speak
Be sure to allow everyone who needs to speak - enough time to do so. Often managers or louder team members dominate meetings, consuming all the time and not giving quieter attendees enough time to speak up. You can help alleviate this by including allotted times for all those who have something to say, in your meeting agenda.
5. Capture action items
During the meeting, note down every task that needs to be completed, what the deadline is, and which team members will be responsible for completing them. This is the single most important element of the meeting.
6. Share your meeting notes and store in an easy-to-find place
Once you have completed your meeting and taken your meeting notes, spend some time organizing and editing what you’ve written, making it an easy-to-read, concise document. Once you have this, share the notes with your team and put them in a place where team members can find them so everyone can easily refer to them and check on the action points and outcomes. You can share any Craft document easily via a deeplink or ‘share-by-web’ link - and you can store notes in a shared Craft space.
7. Follow up on actions
Assign one of your team the responsibility of checking on the progress of actions that were agreed upon during the meeting.
Summary
Meeting notes help teams be more productive by focusing on the most important issues, capturing it, and ensuring agreed actions take place. Taking the time to do it right will help your team stay organized and on track.
