I used to think taking meeting notes was all about copying everything verbatim. It took me a while to realize that not only was this counterproductive, it was ultimately harmful. For one, good meetings (the kind where people should be meeting in real time versus over an email) usually involves discussion. When you copy without listening, you might not get the latest decision. Furthermore, no one has time to look over an essay after having already spent an hour in the meeting.
From my experience of taking notes both for school and work, I employ a few strategies that have really taken my notes to the next level.
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Attendees
I’ve had the unfortunate privilege of attending several meetings with the same agenda but with different people. Inevitably, you get asked, “When was this decision made? Why wasn’t I there? I didn’t agree to this!” It’s important to know who was there to make sure they (or their proxy) played a role in that decision.
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Date Changes/Project Changes/Obstacles
This single-handedly transformed my project statuses. I learned the hard way that executives didn’t always read my mountain of notes afterwards. My CTO told me he really cared about 3 things: (1) date changes, (2) project changes, (3) and any obstacles that he could help with.
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Useful Links
This may lead to the project wiki, jira epic, calendar, or even the schedule. Regardless, this is where I download my brain and especially if people don’t utilize bookmarks, I don’t want anybody to have an excuse for not knowing where to look. Not to mention the added benefit of saving them a trip from asking me. Don’t get me wrong, I love to help people, but sometimes you have to help yourself first.
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Action Items, and if possible, with the owner and date.
Responsible attendees will simultaneously take notes of what they need to do, but as a project manager you shouldn’t rely on that. The worst is if there’s 2-3 owners, and they all thought somebody else was going to handle it. Or if they were waiting on somebody else, but nobody knew about it. It’s minor dependencies like this that impede progress. To take it a step further, I like to mark out people’s names in red.
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Calendar/Schedule
I love adding pictures and colors to my notes. I find tables useful for showing next steps, and calendars let you see how far away (or close!) a deadline really is, especially if you mark it with a big TODAY and DUE DATE on it.
Lastly, I always ask myself, “Who are these notes for?”.
Once I define that, I’ll ask that person what I can do to make my notes better. Because even if I think I did a fantastic job, if at the end the people don’t read it, then I haven’t done my job. You’ll be surprised at the little things that people will mention that make all the difference. Perspective is good.