Back in March, I wrote a post about helpful tips for running a meeting. With it was a free copy of my meeting minutes template. Here is a brief refresher when hosting a meeting: [1] Write out the purpose of the meeting with actionable events in mind. e.g. “Provide an updated status, identifying risks and opportunities, and identify new action items.”
[2] Identify your attendee list but only keep those you can map to the actionable events listed in step 1. There is a difference between an attendee list and a communications distribution list.
[3] Create an agenda. Do not ever arrange a meeting without a written agenda. Your meeting will suffer scope creep in the worst possible way.
[4] Identify who will run the meeting and who will take notes. It should not be the same person.
[5] Ensure discussion points align to the agenda. If they don’t, recommend taking the topic to another forum.
[6] End the meeting by having the note taker read back the discussion points and the understood action items.
[7] Send out the meeting minutes within one to two days.
Please note I don't recommend using this for a Daily Scrum or Stand Up Meeting.