It is often a good approach to use the previous call's minutes as the starting point for creating the agenda, and then use the call's agenda as the starting point for creating its minutes. This article tackles speed when taking business minutes on a call; read the earlier part of this series on how to take good minutes at teleconference meetings. If speed is your primary concern, because taking minutes for a teleconference business meeting takes you hours, read on to learn some time-saving techniques.
How to Click Send at the End When Taking Business Meeting Minutes
In my workplace, we have a few employees who are able to complete the entire process of taking minutes by the end of the call, and click "Send" to distribute the minutes just as soon as everyone hangs up. They do good work and they rarely miss any details. To most of us, it's a mystery how they can do this. But here are their secrets.
- They are fast typists and good writers. People who don't fall into these two categories can still produce accurate minutes, but it will take longer.
- They stick to the important facts, leaving everything else out of their minutes.
- For most of the people who have something important to contribute, they can simply type it themselves.
- In a few cases they use instant messaging to clarify what they are writing. If this is not possible, they ask questions for the minutes. But they keep both these techniques to a minimum, to avoid being disruptive.
- If they have something important to bring to the call themselves, they make notes in advance.
- Many calls have slow or routine parts, or long discussions that only result in a few important details. They put this time to good use working on the minutes.
- If they miss something important, they always have a friend that they can ask via instant messaging. And they're glad to return the favor when it's the friend's turn to take minutes.
- They use strategic messaging: if it's not their turn, they are liable send a message to the current scribe with the highlights of something important they may have contributed. This is often reciprocated later, making their own job easier.
- They do the best they can, but they are not obsessed with perfection. They ask for help when they need it. They're willing to wait if someone needs to get back to them with important details. But they finish the job quickly and move on to something else.
Agendas and Minutes to Prepare for the Next Meeting
To improve your speed taking minutes at the next teleconference call, take the actual minutes document from the previous meeting and use it to create an agenda. Consider templating the process, or using free business meeting templates to help create a basic structure.
Use these tips to document in real time, and to click send at the end.
Erik Zoltan - Erik Zoltan has more than 20 years of computing experience working for large and small corporations such as ESI Technology, EDS, Inc. and ...
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