Perfecting Meeting Management and Minute-Taking Skills

Meeting management is important for meetings as meetings are an essential part of any organization. They can often be time-consuming and unproductive. Meeting management and minute-taking skills help in maintaining focus, meeting objectives, and writing down decisions.

This training explores the benefits of excellent meeting management and minute-taking skills. It provides tips on how to improve these skills. Also helps you become more effective in your role and make your meetings more productive.

Essential meeting management skills to master

In today’s workplace, meeting managements skills are useful for communication and collaboration. These skills will ensure your meetings are productive and achieve their goals.

1. Planning and preparation

Effective meeting management begins with proper planning and preparation. Set clear goals, define the meeting’s purpose, and determine the attendees’ needs. This includes developing a detailed agenda and sharing it with attendees in advance. Ensure that resources such as presentation materials or equipment are available.

2. Time management

Managing time is a critical skill for successful meeting management. You need to ensure that meetings start and end on time. Discussions should also stay on track. To do this, set realistic time limits for each agenda item and stick to them. Avoid going off-topic. If discussions are taking too long, consider rescheduling and continuing the conversation.

3. Facilitation

A successful meeting requires a skilled facilitator. This person can lead discussions and keep the meeting on track. They should ensure that all attendees have a chance to take part in the meeting. Also, discussions remain respectful and productive. A skilled facilitator should as well be able to manage conflicts.

4. Communication

Communication is important for successful effective meeting management. This includes clear and concise communication of the meeting’s purpose, agenda, and objectives. It also includes active listening and encouraging participation. Ensure that all attendees understand the meeting’s outcomes and next steps.

5. Follow-up

After the meeting, follow up to ensure the completion of any action items. Also, check the implementation of decisions and the progress of goals. You can send meeting minutes that capture these three needs. It’s also essential to follow up on any pending action items to ensure their completion in time.

Minute-taking skills

In essence, taking minutes is not that difficult. It alludes to taking notes and outlining the key ideas brought up during a meeting. Simply summarizing the meeting’s outcomes. Any relevant conversations can be recorded in these notes. Taking note of the plans for action resulting from the meeting as well. Examine the minutes properly. Modify before submitting for review by the organization’s board or members.

One individual is often designated to take minutes during meetings in most businesses and organizations. This person is in charge of writing up a precise, thorough report of the meeting for the organization’s governing body.

This is a crucial ability that keeps employees updated and on the same page within an organization. It helps to keep a written account of the meeting because memory isn’t always accurate.

Important meeting discussion points are simple to forget. Minutes serve as the meeting’s official record. They are an excellent approach to notify members who cannot attend the meeting.

The following three forms of meeting minutes exist:

Action minutes:

These minutes of meetings include things that need follow-up or given attention afterward. They specify what has to be done, who is in charge of finishing it, and when it needs to be done.

Discussion minutes:

Such meeting minutes record the subjects brought up during a discussion. They give an explanation of any decisions made and any additional research or discussions required.

Verbatim minutes:

They ensure that no information about what was said is lost. These meeting minutes record every detail of the verbal exchanges at the meeting verbatim. You can use these meetings as a guide when seeking agreements among meeting participants.

Tips for taking accurate and useful meeting minutes

Prepare in advance before the meeting. First, familiarize yourself with the agenda and expected outcomes. This will help you expect the discussion and make it easier to take notes.

Create a template for your minutes. This can help you stay organized. It allows you to capture all essential information. The template should not miss the meeting’s date, attendees, and agenda items. But you could add the discussion points and action items.

Your minutes should be objective and unbiased. Stick to the facts and don’t add your opinions or interpretations to the discussion.

Use clear and concise language to ensure that your minutes are easy to read and understand. Avoid using technical jargon or acronyms that may be unfamiliar to some attendees.

Record key points. Focus on capturing key discussion points, decisions made, and action items assigned. This includes any deadlines or follow-up required for action items.

Listen during the meeting and take notes on what is being discussed. Ensure that you capture who is speaking and the key points they are making.

Summarize discussions into brief, bulleted points. This captures the key takeaways from the conversation. It helps to ensure that your minutes are clear and concise.

Essential minute-taking skills

Business writing as minutes must be written in the language of business and be clear and simple.
Organizational skills as a minute-taker should have a comprehensive understanding of the future agenda. Conversely, they ought to have knowledge of discussion subjects, a record of previous meetings, and competence in minutes organization.
Active listening skills involve tuning into the conversation’s or discussion’s significance.
As a minute-taker, critical thinking skills mean knowing how to tell what is important and what is not.
Ability to use shorthand, paraphrase, and summarize as you type. Also, being able to omit the “unimportant” terms. Whereas scribing while others are speaking, these abilities are very crucial.
Good attention to detail, proofreading skills, and command of spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
Quick touch-typing speed (90 to 100 words per minute). Because you need to be able to think more quickly than your flying fingers when you’re scribbling.

Challenges in minute-taking scenarios

The meeting’s agenda may have not been clearly stated, making it difficult for the minute-taker to know what information to record.

There may be too much discussion or exchange of ideas for the minute taker to adequately record all key information.

Connection problems and delays can cause lost information or mistakes in the minutes recorded during virtual meetings.

If decisions are not reached at the meeting, it may be challenging to document them precisely.

Professional minute takers must be quick and precise in order to properly record all relevant information.

Common meeting management mistakes to avoid

One significant mistake in meeting management is poor planning and preparation. Without a clear agenda, goals, and objectives, meetings can become disorganized and unfocused. Ensure you prepare well before a meeting. Set clear goals and get all the necessary resources.

Effective time management is critical to a successful meeting. Failing to manage time leads to off-topic discussions, or the meeting overrunning. This can cause attendees to become disengaged and disinterested. Hence, make sure to set adequate time for each agenda item and stick to the schedule.

All attendees should have an opportunity to take part in the meeting. Failing to encourage participation can lead to attendees not engaging. Also, there ends up being a lack of ownership in decisions made. Encourage participation through active listening and asking open-ended questions.

Meeting management should focus on achieving specific goals and objectives. Failure to do this can lead to discussions drifting off-topic or wasting resources. Keep the meeting focused on the agenda items, and avoid introducing new topics.

Communication is critical to the success of any meeting. Poor communication can lead to misunderstandings and confusion. It leads to a lack of clarity around decisions made. Ensure that everyone understands the agenda, goals, and objectives of the meeting. Encourage active listening and clear, concise communication.

Finally, failing to follow up after the meeting can be a significant mistake. Without follow-up, you may not complete action items. Additionally, the implementation of decisions may become slow. Always distribute the minutes after the meeting. Then, follow up on action items assigned to ensure completion takes place on time.

Tools for managing meetings

Fellow

Tailored to collaborate meeting agendas. You can be creating and jot down meeting agendas and minutes. You might as well track your action items. This keeps your team organized and accountable.

This tool is your savior when it comes to drafting meeting agenda templates. Also, in allocating action items, and recording meeting minutes. This application keeps your team organized with meeting action items and next steps. It fosters a collaborative virtual work environment and champions individual accountability.

Calendly

Ideal for setting up meetings and maintaining calendar organization. Calendly enables others to set up meetings in your calendar by emailing them a link. It has the ability to connect to and sync with your Google calendar.

You can choose the meeting platform that works best for you and your team. Then integrate it well with either Zoom, Outlook, or Google Meet. This is one of the best online meeting management tools.

Slido

Well-matched for polls and Q&A in virtual events. Massive meetings or presentations work best with Slido. This technology is quite interactive. It collects top questions from the public and involves users in live polls and quizzes. Slido is also incredibly user-friendly and permits anonymous interaction. Both of which stimulate engagement among users who may be a little more reserved. Attendees can easily sign up and access the portal to take part in the live polls.

Vidyard

This is the best option for a video-based asynchronous approach. This might be a useful tool to control the number of meetings on your calendar. Especially if you’re interested in embracing more asynchronous communication.

The ability to shoot and send videos to your team is what makes Vidyard so popular. With this tool, you can make tutorials, how-to films, and training videos for your clients. Many CRMs and your Chrome browser are both integrated.

Chilli Piper

A tool for sales teams wishing to manage sales meetings and increase productivity. The tool works particularly well if you work in sales. It helps you create leads and handle sales meetings in a much more timely manner. Additionally, it has an automated option that schedules appointments or calls into your calendar. This program is easy to use and you can include it as an add-on to Google Chrome. It is well-integrated with Google, Salesforce, Outlook, and more.

nTask

nTask is best for meetings that include project management. This tool is a fantastic task management and project management application. It enables you to plan and manage all the meetings you have. The application includes problem tracking, risk, and time management. Above it too are Kanban boards and Gantt charts.

How to facilitate difficult meetings

Prepare and set clear objectives

Create a safe environment by encouraging open communication. Here everyone can share their opinions without fear of judgment. Be respectful of everyone’s views and encourage active listening.

Encourage participation, especially attendees who are more reserved or quiet. Ask open-ended questions and give everyone a chance to speak.

Manage conflict since conflict is inevitable in difficult meetings. Acknowledge everyone’s feelings.

Keep emotions in check when they run high in difficult meetings. Be aware of your own emotions and reactions and encourage others to do the same.

Stay focused. Keep the discussion on the topic and redirect the conversation if necessary.

Summarize and follow up

How to run productive virtual meetings

Set clear objectives. It’s as important to set clear objectives for virtual meetings as it is in live meetings. This will help everyone stay focused and ensure that the meeting is productive.

Choose a reliable video conferencing platform that everyone is comfortable using. Test the platform before the meeting to make sure everyone can access it.

Start the meeting on time. Encourage attendees to join a few minutes early. This helps with the resolution of any technical issues.

Set ground rules for the meeting. This can be using the mute button when not speaking and raising your hand if you have a question or comment.

Encourage participation from everyone. Do this by asking open-ended questions and giving everyone a chance to speak. Use tools like polls or breakout rooms to get everyone involved.

Use visual aids, such as slides or screen sharing. This keeps everyone engaged and helps illustrate your points.

Be mindful of time zones and schedule the meeting at a time that works for everyone.

Record the meeting for attendees who may have missed it or want to review the discussion.

Do’s and Don’ts of meeting management

Dos:

Set clear objectives and an agenda

Start and end on time

Encourage participation

Listen actively

Summarize key points and next steps

Don’ts:

Go off-topic

Allow disruptions

Ignore different opinions

Allow one person to dominate

Neglect follow-up

https://trainbywebinar.com/excellent-meeting-management-and-minute-taking-skills-training

https://hbr.org/1976/03/how-to-run-a-meeting

https://ipo.info.yorku.ca/tool-and-tips/tip-sheet-12-minute-taking-tips-and-techniques/

Excellent Meeting Management and Minute Taking Skills Training