Has the world changed its mind on meeting minutes?
Anonymous
Following a meeting where our top five projects were discussed in moderate detail to assess their alignment to corporate strategic objectives, I prepared a summary of the discussions and the outcomes. I had two goals - to document the discussions and to provide the folks who were not present an opportunity to understand what happened.
I was a little surprised to receive a call from an executive assistant, who thanked me for the summary and then pointed out that there are legal issues with preparing detailed summaries of meetings. I asked what the legal issues were and she vaguely mentioned retention policies and such. My general approach to publishing anything is to first envision myself on a witness stand, reading my own words, so I was really not concerned about breaching any legal limits.
I freely admit that preparing meeting minutes is my LEAST favorite PM activity, but I feel they are invaluable and they need to be done within 1-2 days of the actual meeting. This is what I was taught in every PM class I've ever attended. PMI strongly endorses this as well (I'm a PMP).
What do you think about this? Do you prepare meeting minutes? Do you see value or risk in doing so? Saving Changes...
I have had similar questions brought up, about vague "legal issues" involved in recording meeting minutes.
My approach is to document anything substantive that happens in the meeting. I do not document every word, every gesture, and every side-comment. Perhaps some of these could be mis-construed if taken out of context.
On the other hand, if someone approves a budget variance, I want that documented. I want that in writing, no matter what the legal issues involved.
As a general rule, I have seen that the companies where I prefer to work, no one objects to detailed minutes. Recording what actually happened is welcomed, because people want the records. Follow legal record retention guidelines, and your lawyers and auditors will love you for your detailed minutes.
I have seen people come from companies with a less-than-stellar track record for legal compliance, and those people did resist writing up meeting minutes. At some extremes, they asked for a lawyer to be present at the meeting, to help decide what should be documented and how it should be worded. Personally, I will not work in an environment like that.
My attitude is that if we have the meeting and we talked about it, then it has happened. We face the legal issues because of the meeting, not because I wrote down the events in the minutes. Anyone at the meeting could be called on the stand, so if we should not be documenting a certain issue due to legal issues, we should not be talking about it or doing it either. I tend to do my business very much "out in the open", though. I understand the need for trade secrets, but accurate, internal memos should be welcomed, not suppressed.
I worked for years in insurance, and I have seen more insurance companies hurt by MISSING records than by EXTRA records. Some of the companies kept certain types of records forever, beyond any legal requirement. They did so because they wanted full records, just in case an old policy or claim went to litigation years later. If you do business well, the records are likely to help you, not hurt you.
The risk of not documenting something is that a court may rule against you. If an insurance company cannot produce a policy document, for instance, courts will often assume that an accident or event is covered. Without any documentation, the court may rule against you.
Likewise, if you have records about a key management decision and the issues considered, that could help explain the final decision to regulators or courts. If you were truly trying to protect the public and your customers, those minutes could help you.
I hope this helps.
--Alex Saving Changes...
Gabrielle MaherPMO Consultant| IndependentLondon, London, United Kingdom
Approaching your question from a PMO and best practice perspective - I would definately say you are doing the right thing minuting project meetings and you should definately minute a project board review.
All programme boards are definately minuted and filed in a PMO DMS. I am fairly sure this is an internal audit recommendation - we even write up document review feedback and file them on the DMS.
I agree with Alex and you don't need a lot of detail - but you definately want a summary of the narrative, discussion topics, a list of all decisions reached, and a list of all actions to be taken / by whom / by what date and a list of invitees and attendees
The only time I have witnessed resistance to minutes is when an issue is very sensitive, or there is an action which is embarassingly overdue !! But that is not a reason not to take minutes. You should also distribute an agenda prior to meetings so that people are pre-warned of what topics will arise.
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"The only time I have witnessed resistance to minutes is when an issue is very sensitive, or there is an action which is embarassingly overdue !!"
I have found that people are very embarrassed and resistant at the time, because the issue seems terribly overdue or a huge issue at the time. As time passes, though, the fact that it was a little overdue becomes much less important. People become increasingly grateful that they recorded the date that it was resolved as more time passes. Your minutes will be appreciated more, the more time passes. The embarrassment will fade. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
I am the original "asker" here and wish to thank you for your thoughtful replies. I will pass this along to my colleagues, who were as confused by this as I.
I like to send out the meeting minutes. It helps everyone stay on the same page by reiterating the discussed items. It also leaves the communication open incase of any changes/corrections/additions need to be made within a set date of closure. A good tracker of the actions items and person responsible for each action item.
Personally, I send out an agenda before the scheduled meeting so that people are aware of the topics of interest and hence they come prepared. In the event, we come up with additional topics of interest and try to correlate them to the exisitng items. Hence my meeting minutes include a summary of the items on the agenda with a correlation to the new items of interest.
I have'nt encountered any risks by doing so, rather I see a risk of not being able to keep everyone on the same page by NOT sending out the meeting minutes. Saving Changes...
I agree entirely about minuting meetings & how important it can be. However, what techniques do people use? At my old company I could usually get someone in to minute the meeting, however where I am now the PAs hide much better. This means that, for example, at an end stage meeting recently I was trying to chair the meeting, present the progress to date, be involved in the relevant discussions and write it all down too. This actually impacted on the quality of the meeting imho. All suggestions appreciated.
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Meeting minutes can be an important tool in a culture with accountability. We can be selective about what is recorded in minutes but an undocumented decision is not a decision. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
In our company, budget cuts have severely decreased the staff that formerly produced meeting minutes. Now we have fairly high-level managers preparing the meeting minutes. It has changed the entire shape of the minutes. Now they are just bulletized cliff notes that do not fulfill their function. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
Thanks to everyone for their time and thoughts. I share your frustration over trying to facilitate and document a meeting simultaneously. Skilled scribes are scarce in our company, where project management outside our IT area is just getting its feet wet.
The IT group in our company has minutes down to a science. They take notes and compile meaningful and informative notes within 24 hours of the meeting. The business side of the house (ironically the writers) find this too cumbersome and declare it "no value added".
My challenge, which I've chosen to accept, is to bring a clear enterprise practice to the organization. It takes more diplomacy than actual knowledge to bridge the cultural divide. I've started with treating everyone like pre-schoolers - lots of consistency and reinforcement. Agendas are prepared and distributed with input requested, minutes are reviewed first thing at each meeting, and fresh notes are distributed after each meeting. I see this taking a while to catch on.... Saving Changes...
In my experience it is best to decide from the beginning what should be recorded. To put it simply, Agenda must be circulated with any supporting documents at least one week before the meeting takes place. During the meeting only the actions and decisions are recorded and then circulated. At the next follow up meeting, the Meeting minutes must be confirmed, if there are any discrepancies this is the time to correct them. This approach is preferred as it eliminates the old method of capturing meeting minutes 'court and jury' way thus allows freedom of speech! Saving Changes...
