How to Take Minutes at Meetings

Is minute taking a skill? Is minute taking a requirement of today's businesses?

Just take 5 minutes to search 'minute taking' on the Internet to see the hundreds of courses out there on the subject - half day to fully certificated training.

Minute taking used to be the good old secretary's domain because they knew shorthand, but how many secretaries or personal assistants are there now as opposed to administrators? But do administrators know how to take minutes?

Good administrators should. Everyone has their own form of shorthand to take notes, even if it is just text talk: it just needs refining for the business place.

A minute taker needs to be a very good listener. They should not be a member of the invited meeting, so that they can impartially write minutes and listen to everything that is being said.

Minutes are a summary of the meeting, so only the key, relevant points that were discussed need to be noted.

As the meeting has happened by the time the minutes are typed up, they are written in the past tense. They are also written in the third person. 'I', 'we' or 'you' is never used. For example, minutes will not say "we are deciding" but "it was decided" - in the past tense and third person.

As this is a business document, slang, strong adjectives or any exaggeration is omitted - again only the relevant key point is noted and does not have to be verbatim.

At many meetings, discussions can go on at length. Even if the discussion is relevant, it only needs to be summarised. A useful phrase is "after much discussion it was decided to..." This indicates that many people contributed to the discussion but it was not necessary to report everything that was said.

Meeting minutes or notes are formal and quite short. The aim is to reflect the main business of the meeting and the decisions that were taken, so they can be used for reference in future. If someone's name needs to be included, use the full name or their initials.

Layout of minutes:

Name of meeting, when, where.

List of participants, usually under the heading 'Present'. The chairperson should always be put first with 'chair' after their name. Following that, names go in alphabetical order of surnames. It is useful to put their initials after their name, which can then be used in the body of the minutes.

Apologies for Absence. This should list all those who have informed to chair or another member of the meeting that they cannot attend. It is a meeting etiquette to always inform if unable to attend. Some companies have minutes copied to senior managers, who insist on a list of 'Not Present' to be added to highlight those who did not find the meeting worthy enough of informing their absence.

Minutes of Previous Meeting. This is where the previous meeting's minutes are agreed or amended. If they need to be amended, it should be included in these minutes under this heading.

Matters Arising. This refers to the previous meeting, and should be the feedback from participants who had action points.

Then each discussion topic should be headed. These should follow the format of the agenda items, which are listed in order of priority. Under each heading a summary of the discussion or decision is written.

On the right hand side of the page, should be a column for 'Action'. In here are the initials of those who need to act upon decisions made. It should be clear so that members of the meeting can see what they need to do at a quick glance.

The last topic should always be 'Any other business' where topics that were not on the agenda are raised if relevant or if time allows. Again, these should be titled and summarised.

Finally, a date and time for the next meeting should be agreed and noted on the minutes. A location is usually included if known at the time of writing.

Minutes are distributed, but not accepted as a true record of the meeting until they are agreed at the next meeting.