The Art of Meeting Minutes
“He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.” - George Orwell
Meeting minutes are often overlooked or seen as busy work, notes, a waste of paper, or "unnecessary as long as everyone just does what they say they're gonna do!" Many don't open them up again until the next meeting, instead keeping actionable items in personal to-do lists and committing decisions, agreements, and deadlines to memory. While meeting minutes may not be the only way these items are documented, their main purpose often comes into play well after the next meeting. Consider this scenario:
You are a Site Manager and attending a standard bi-weekly OAC meeting and have just explained why a delayed consultant approval has caused a 1 week delay to the critical path. The owner's understands this is a reasonable cause for delay, and agrees that we can push back substantial completion by 1 week if the time isn't made up by the next milestone in 2 months. The PM does not update the schedule yet, hoping the time can be made up. The meeting concludes and everyone carries on working for the next 2 months. Unfortunately you were not able to make up the time and are ready to present a schedule update. Meanwhile, the owner's rep has received increased pressure to finish the project as scheduled and has a conveniently selective memory. You email a schedule update showing a 1 week delay from the previous substantial completion date and the owner's rep immediately calls you. You ask yourself:
- Is the delay documented in the meeting minutes?
- Can you find that note in the next 2 minutes?
- Does it concisely state who agreed to what?
How to take great Meeting Minutes:
Meeting minutes should always be taken in real time, as the meeting occurs. Taking short form notes while in the meeting is a fine if you can not type quickly enough, as long as you include enough information to complete all the necessary details. Do not be afraid to ask to pause the meeting for a few moments to finish completing a note before moving on to the next topic.
Whenever possible, minutes should be taken directly in Procore. This will minimize duplicate work due to transcribing at a later date.
If a confirmation is provided or an agreement is reached, the agreement should be specifically noted in the minutes. If an agreement is not reached, the position of each party should be noted. The notes should show what each party will do about the unresolved issue and when they will do it.
Avoid vague language such "trying to..." or "working on...". These types of statements provide no benefit.
Always use a person's first and last name in minutes. Do not use initials, company names, roles or pronouns i.e. "we", "they", etc. This allows external parties, as well as members of the same team to see who agreed to do what. Do not think of this as gaslighting or being abrasive - it is simply the most detailed way to capture meeting minutes and will benefit all parties.
The notes should be as concise as possible. They do not need to cover entire discussions, but must clearly state the resolution of each important point and the key reasons that supported the decision.
When documenting a request, always include the date of the request, the due date, and the impact (delay) if that due date is exceeded. If the responding party is not willing to provide a date by which the item will be completed, suggest a date and get them to commit.
Minutes should generally follow the format [Person] [Action] [Subject] [Due Date]. As you gain experience taking meeting minutes, you will find that you can concisely capture almost all conversations using just a few sentence structures and key words. For example:
- [Chris Mallinos] [requested] [Structural IFT Drawings] from [Jose Polanco] on [June 14, 2021].
- [Jose Polanco] [agreed to provide] [Structural IFT Drawings] by [June 18, 2021].
- [Jose Polcano] [issued] [Structural IFT Drawings] via [Procore Instructions] to [Chris Mallinos] on [June 21, 2021].
- [Chris Mallinos] [advised that] [structural work may be delayed by 3 days as a result of delayed Structural IFT drawings]
- [Blake Eddy] [confirmed] [egress hardware is not required at door 226A]. [Blake Eddy] to [add the response] to [RFI 126] for formal closure.
- [Chris Toth] [provided direction to] [use 6" block at P2 infills in lieu of 8" block as required by drawings]. [Alex Critelli] [advised that] [building inspectors may require 8" block but we are proceeding based on owner's direction].
Agendas should be issued no more than 24 hours before the meeting. This will make the agenda easy for others to find in their inbox and remind them the meeting is coming up soon.
Meeting minutes should be distributed no more than 24 hours after the meeting. Responsibility for a task is often assigned in meetings. Consultants, Trades, Owners, and Tucker employees should be able to use the meeting minutes as a to do list between now and the next meeting. Meeting minutes are a legal document. We must give all parties 48 hours from receipt of the minutes to review and notify us of any discrepancies. In the interest of obtaining truthful and transparent documentation, we want them to have that opportunity while the call is still fresh in their mind. If 2 weeks passes and minutes have not been issued, there may have been some developments in the project which would make other parties want the written record to reflect something different than what was discussed. Giving them the 48 hour review window at this point could create further conflict.
Important
If left unchallenged, the inaccuracies and omissions in the meeting minutes become the permanent record. If you are not the person responsible for keeping the meeting minutes, you should review the published meeting minutes immediately after you receive them. While this may seem like a tedious, trivial, or uninspiring task, it is of paramount importance. Look for items in the meeting minutes that do not reflect what was discussed in the meeting (sometimes people miss things). Also, look for language that would cause you to assume excess accountability, or contains a commitment to an impractical or impossible deadline.