Meeting Minutes – How to do it with Best Practices (+16 FAQ’s)

How to Create Meeting Minutes with Best Practices

Create meeting minutes for business meetings and meetings that are important to you. Meeting minutes are a written record of what transpired. Meeting minutes are mandatory by law for company board meetings, but it should not stop there. Creating an accurate account of your meetings is important as meeting participants’ recollections may not be accurate on details that took place.

It is especially true when individuals have a lot of meetings to attend, or when a significant amount of time has passed after a meeting. Your meeting minutes must have the following details regardless of the type of meeting. This is especially true for your company board meetings but should also be used for group meetings.

Meeting minutes are not necessary for some types of business meetings including announcement meetings, HR onboarding meetings, training meetings, etc. You should keep your meeting minutes confidential and on a need-to-know basis when sending them after the meeting. Distribute them to meeting participants.

Your meeting minutes are not to be made public unless mandated by the company or public institution. Your business competitors would love to get a hold of your meeting minutes. It would allow them to know what you are doing giving them a tremendous advantage. Therefore, keep them confidential.

The Eleven Elements Needed in Meeting Minutes

Your meeting minutes will have the following eleven elements to be considered complete.

1. Date & Time

The date and time that your meeting took place is an important element to include in your meeting minutes. It provides context and reference to know exactly when it took place. You must also include the length of time for your meeting, again for context. Do not use an all numbers format as it may be difficult to understand when it took place.

For instance, one format is day, month, and year. While another commonly used format is month, day, year. Do not use difficult formats that may have several interpretations. Instead use the following method:
May 10, 2024 (which is much easier to understand then 10/05/2024 or 05/10/2024 respectively)

2. Venue Location

Specify the meeting location and include the address, meeting room name, and any other details to properly identify the meeting location. Your business meetings will take place in all kinds of locations if they are one-on-one meetings and meeting rooms for group meetings. The location is a reference just like the above date and time, so participants know exactly when and where the meeting took place should they need to refer to the meeting minutes in the future.

3. Participants

Include the meeting participant names that attended and were present at the meeting. It is also good practice to include the names of invitees who did not attend. Do not make the mistake of writing the participants first names only, but also include everyone’s last name.

Include all the names of all recipients in your minutes under the heading of ‘meeting minutes distribution list’. Both, the meeting participants and the distribution list are usually identical, although in some cases you may need to also send them to a senior person in the company that has not attended the meeting.

4. Meeting Minutes Notes Taker

You as the organizer is the person that usually takes meeting minutes, although anyone at the meeting can be elected to do so. It is necessary someone to take on this role and you many need to assign someone to it. The meeting notes taker should have experience taking notes and if they do not then use a meeting minutes’ journal to accurately capture the meeting minutes.

Please look at the Insider Tip for my pick. When the organizer of the meeting is going to be involved in white board exercises or other hands-on activities, then it is a good idea to elect a note taker.

5. Facilitator

The meeting facilitator is someone in the meeting that will lead the group through the meeting agenda and any exercises that may be necessary. The facilitator is the person that ensures that everyone is being heard in the meeting. The meeting ground rules and etiquette is also enforced by you as the facilitator.

The qualities of a good facilitator are someone who is comfortable in front of a group, is outgoing, keep the momentum of the meeting going forward, and has a likeable demeanor. The meeting organizer is the facilitator by default as they understand the agenda and the goal or objective of the meeting.

6. Time Keeper

A time keeper can be assigned when there is a lot to accomplish in the agenda. In such cases it is prudent to allot times for each topic of discussion. The timekeeper is the person that keeps track of the allotted time for each topic discussion on the agenda to ensure that the meeting topics have their respective time.

Assign an amount of time each person to speak on behalf of the topic. This way no one dominates any topic and everyone is heard. In a large group you may want to have timed introductory comments, followed by timed solution suggestions and then followed by group agreement action items. Time keepers are an important element to keep a meeting on schedule.

7. Meeting Purpose

Always include the purpose of the meeting in the meeting minutes. Create a simple sentence with a clear description as the reason for the meeting. It should match the meeting purpose in the agenda distributed to all attendees prior to the meeting. A good meeting purpose description is in the form of an action.

For instance; ‘the meeting is to provide solutions for revenue growth in our product line with the lowest earned revenues’. Here the meeting is clear, and that the participants will be discussing the product line with lowest sales with the intention of increasing its sales.

8. Meeting Objectives (usually from the Meeting Agenda)

Your meetings will have topics of discussion, exercises, and presentations of information in various forms. These and other such meeting items are objectives that you want to address during the meeting that you believe will get you to the meeting outcomes.

These outcomes are directly related to the meeting purpose and are the solutions related to it. It is good practice to include discussion points on each topic and indicate who brought up each point. Discussions do not need to be recorded verbatim, but can be done in point form as summary points.

9. Meeting Outcomes

Your meetings will have one or several topics to discuss. After each topic there will be an agreement by the attendees to continue the discussion, or agree on a course of action. This is an outcome. A meeting topic may have several outcomes associated with a topic agreed by the group or its leader.

For instance, your meeting topic may have the conclusion that more research and information is needed on the topic. Transform the outcome into an action item using the method mentioned below.

10. Action Items

The outcome of a discussion or exercise will generate an action item that will address the meeting purpose. In the example above the outcome for one of the meeting topics was to obtain more research and information. The action item for such an outcome is to assign a responsible person or group to do the required research and present it to participants by the next meeting.

A good action item has three factors. A clear description of what needs to be done, a due date, and a responsible person (or group assigned). Assign a group leader that is responsible for the group when assigning responsibility to a group. Otherwise, chaos may ensue when two or more strong personalities try to do things their own way.

More Information: What Are Action Items In A Meeting & The 10 Most Frequently Asked Questions

11. Follow-up (Responsible person)

Elect an individual in the group that will follow up on the progress of each action item to ensure that all action items are completed on time. You will run the risk of action items not being completed by their due dates when you don’t have an accountability measure in place such as a follow-up responsible person. This person is responsible to provide frequent ongoing updates to the group on the action items, and can be the meeting organizer or another elected individual.

Your meeting minutes will be very complete and professional when you follow these eleven elements and include them in your meeting minutes.

Trust My Advice

I have been a business consultant for more than three decades and I often advise companies of various sizes about how to increase meeting productivity. Meeting minutes is one such topic that is reviewed and most organizations do not do it properly. This is because usually a company doesn’t have a meetings policy or has done any training on how to conduct meetings properly. My advice here in this article is to provide you with useful information that you can implement right away on meeting minutes. It is what I share with clients frequently and I hope that it will benefit you.

Insider Tip

As already mentioned use a well formatted meeting minutes’ journal for the following reasons:

1. Your meetings are kept in one place so that it is easy for you to find all the details about your meetings easily.
2. The meeting minutes’ pages are formatted with blank sessions so that you don’t have to worry about missing any meeting details. Just fill in the blank sections of the page.
3. You can quickly locate your action items from each meeting so that you are not wondering what they are and who is responsible for them

My pick for a meeting minute’s journal is the Konnect Meeting Minutes Journal. It has more features than any other journal of its kind in the market today, and is easy to use. It has an easy index referencing system, a centralized section for all your action items so that you don’t necessarily have to find the specific meeting unless you want to, and more. Available in hard cover and paperback, this is a journal that deserves your consideration when purchasing one.

More Information: Meeting Journal – The Top 3 For This Year

Conclusion

Your meeting minutes is an important component of both professionalism and productivity. It is important for you to get into the habit of creating them not only for yourself but for your organization. Best practice is to send them out within 24 hours after the meeting so that everyone’s recollection is still fresh.

Obtain consensus from the group that they are accurate and follow-up on the action items derived from the meeting. Doing everything that I have mentioned in this article will increase your own credibility in your company and will assist the organization towards achieving their goals.

FAQ’s

1. Are meeting minutes a legal document?

Your meeting minutes can be a legal document. Especially when participants have agreed with the meeting minutes sent out after the meeting. Obviously, a record of the agreed minutes must be available otherwise a dispute to its accuracy could happen. Take the meeting minute’s to a lawyer to assess whether obligations agreed at the meeting were not fulfilled.

You may have legal merit and take it to the courts. If a verbal agreement between you and another party took place and was not fulfilled, then it may be used in a legal action. Especially if both parties agree that the meeting minutes were accurate, then generally, yes they can be a legal document.

A legal corporation has an obligation by law to have one or more meetings per year held by its board members. Keep your board meeting minutes on file for future reference as all licensed companies must have them by law.

2. Are meeting minutes’ public record?

Don’t make your meeting minutes a public record. Do it only when obligated by the corporation or public institution. Public institutions will often make meeting minutes a public record to inform constituents. Privately held companies have the choice to make the meeting minutes public or not. Most private companies do not make their meeting minutes’ public.

The reason is that they will give their competition an advantage. Making them public will notify your issues and discussions that took place giving your competition an upper hand. Your company should have a policy on meeting minutes.

State in your company policy that they should be distributed to participants and personnel directly related to the meeting. Distribute your meeting minutes to meeting participants and they should be treated on a ‘need to know basis’.

3. Are meeting minutes required for an llc?

Yes, you must have meeting minutes for board meetings. They must be accurate and agreed by all participants that they are an accurate depiction of what happened. Most corporations where there are two or more directors must have at least one board meeting per year.

Board meetings must have meeting minutes filed, and kept on record for at least seven years or longer. Meeting minutes are not required for other types of company meetings although it is best practice to do so.

4. Are meeting minutes supposed to be verbatim?

No, but they are supposed to be an accurate record of what transpired during the meeting. You can write the details of the meeting in point form with discussion headings, agreements, and action items. Your meeting action items must have a responsible person or group assigned to complete them. Best practice is to also have a due date so that action items are done without delay.

5. Can meeting minutes be changed?

Meeting minutes can only be changed when all participants agree that they are not accurate. Send out your meeting minutes to all meeting participants after the meeting for review. If anyone who participated in the meetings disagrees with its accuracy, then everyone must provide their opinion.

Then agree as to what transpired. Obtain consensus, as it is important for accuracy. Therefore, send out the meeting minutes as soon as possible because people will forget the longer time passes. Avoid any possible disagreement by distributing the meeting minutes to all participants within 24 hours after the meeting.

6. Can meeting minutes have attachments?

Yes, meeting minutes can have attachments as long as the attachments are properly referenced in the meeting minutes. You will at times have documentation that may support a discussion or agreement that took place in the meeting. Your minutes can reference the materials and documentation.

In this situation, the attachments provide context into the meeting discussions, agreements, and action items, and is a good idea to include within the meeting minutes. You must take into consideration the confidentiality of the attachments and may not want to include the attachments in your minutes due to security implications. In such cases, just broadly reference the confidential documents reviewed in the meeting.

7. Can meeting minutes be bullet points?

Yes, meeting minutes can be done as bullet points and are usually done in this manner. The key components is to make sure you capture the meeting correctly. It is the meeting purpose, objectives, discussion points from the objectives, and the generated action items.

Ensure that you also include the responsible person or group, as well as the due date. Best practice is also to assign someone to follow-up on all action items and their progress prior to any follow-up meetings.

8. Can meeting minutes be approved by email?

Yes they can, as long as all participants respond to the meeting minutes and agree that they are accurate. You may also consider having your meeting minutes as an attachment in an email should the meeting require it. In some cases, you will also want to have the meeting minutes signed electronically to ensure that there is a record that all participants agreed to its accuracy.

9. How detailed should meeting minutes be?

Your meeting minutes must be detailed enough to understand what happened at the meeting many months or even years (such as board meetings) into the future. The higher in importance the greater the amount of details. Board meetings should not only have the meeting purpose, the objectives (as mentioned in the agenda), and discussion points.

They should include the amount of time a topic is discussed, and who brought up the points in the discussion. You should also follow best practices and include the agreements from each objective discussed, as well as action items. Action items will also have a due date and a responsible person or group that will complete the action item. Most meetings may not need this kind of detail and it is up to you to determine what is appropriate.

10. How long should meeting minutes be?

Your meeting minutes will vary depending on the meeting length. Short meetings with one or two discussions and some action items will be shorter while longer meetings lasting two or more hours usually have longer meeting minutes.

Your meeting minutes should include the basics regardless of how long the meeting length is. Include the date, meeting time, meeting length, its purpose, objectives, discussion points, agreements, and finally action items. You should also include all participants of the meeting.

11. What is meeting minutes’ document?

A meeting minutes’ document is where the recorded minutes of the meeting are in. It is a document, usually as a word attachment (for most meetings) and includes all the details of your meeting. The document will have the meeting date, time, location, participants, and length of the meeting. Include its purpose, objectives, discussions, outcomes, and action items.

Remember also to include the responsible person or group for the action items. Assign someone who will track the progress and follow up on each action item. Use your meeting minutes’ journal like the Konnect Meeting Minutes Journal to record the minutes of your meeting easily. Then transcribe them into a document to be sent to all participants.

12. What are meeting minutes for a business?

Meeting minutes for a business is an accurate record of the discussions and activities that took place in your business meeting. You can write them in the form of bullet points. They have meeting specifics such as; date, time, venue, participants, purpose, objectives, discussion points, outcomes, agreements, and action items.

Send out your meeting minutes within 24 hours of the meeting to all participants. The participants should advise that they received them and agree with the meeting minutes. You must change them by consensus if some do not agree with your accuracy.

13. When should meeting minutes be distributed?

Ideally, you send out meeting minutes within 24 hours of the meeting or sooner. You want participants to review your meeting minutes while the meeting is fresh in their minds. The longer you take to send them the greater the probability that someone may develop a different recollection of events.

This will lead to needless discussions on disputed recollection of details. Send out your meeting minutes as soon as possible although there is no specific time to distribute them. Best practice is to do it as soon as possible.

14. When to take meeting minutes?

Take meeting minutes for all business meetings. Certainly where the outcome is important to you or your business. Take minutes of your meetings as an accurate record of what was discussed, agreed to, and what is to be done next. You or your meeting participants may not recollect events, discussions, and agreements after a lot of time has passed.

People’s recollections may falter over time. They remember things that they thought were said or agreed but weren’t. This can happen when someone has many meetings, and so it is for your protection as well as theirs. You must always take meeting minutes in company board meetings. Also, do it for other important meetings that are important to record and file.

15. When are meeting minutes required?

Do your meeting minutes when the meeting is important to you. Also, for the company, and when they will generate action items that must be completed. Keep a record of what transpired in your meeting. Send it to all meeting participants. It serves as an accurate record of your meeting should you need to review it in the future.

They will help you should there be any disputes on what transpired. Get participants to acknowledge the meeting minutes sent to them as well as its accuracy. Send your meeting minutes as an attachment in an email or in the body of an email for less formal meetings.

16. Who keeps minutes in a meeting?

Although it is usually the meeting organizer there is no specific individual that keeps meeting minutes in a group of participants. You as the meeting organizer or the group can elect someone in the meeting who has experience taking minutes to do so.

The usage of a meeting minutes’ journal such as the Konnect Meeting Minutes Journal is a great option for all kinds of meetings and makes it easy for anyone regardless of experience to record accurately what transpired in the meeting.