Have you ever wondered how to write meeting minutes as effectively as possible? Or perhaps you’ve searched for a quick guide or tips on drafting meeting minutes. With iPROT, you have an effective tool that significantly reduces the effort involved in writing and sending meeting minutes. In this article, we have compiled some tips and tricks for you on how to quickly and effectively create and send meeting minutes using iPROT.
What are meeting minutes?
In Wikipedia, you can read the following: “Meeting minutes record or establish when or in what sequence a process was initiated or is initiated by whom or by what. Documentation refers to the recording of the three components of meeting minutes: time, involved persons, and process. If the record is in written form, it is also referred to as a transcript.“
The purpose of keeping meeting minutes is to reconstruct or plan processes in order to locate or avoid errors or malfunctions. To achieve this, the completeness and factual accuracy of the recorded processes and/or results must be ensured.
Which type of meeting minutes is effective?
In practice, a healthy mix of so-called process and outcome meeting minutes has emerged as the ideal form for recording meeting content. This involves documenting the process (at least in keywords) as well as task assignments, results, and decisions of the respective meeting. The content is recorded in indirect speech and written in the present tense.
When creating meeting minutes, it is important to remember that brevity is key. Overly prosaic formulations should therefore be avoided. The 3W rule of thumb can be used as a guide:
- What was agreed upon or decided?
- Who is affected or responsible for it, or for whom is this information relevant?
- What needs to be done by when and by whom?
In iPROT, you can map various types of meeting minutes content to these 3Ws in the settings. We call these entry types. To do this, click on Entry Types in the menu. There you can define, for example, that a task must always include at least a responsible person and a due date.
Effectiveness through Preparation
Every meeting becomes goal-oriented if it is thoroughly prepared. Therefore, invest sufficient time in meeting preparation. iPROT offers several aids for this through its integrated continuous minutes method.
It is best to create a New meeting for your meeting in advance. Simply select the last meeting and click on + New meeting at the top right.
Now you can immediately enter the meeting data for the meeting minutes header. This includes a meeting topic, date, time, location, and meeting minutes author. You can also define the mailing list in this dialog box, to whom the meeting minutes should be sent after the meeting. And a preview of the next meeting dates can be entered in the Notes tab.
Now review the open topics and entries carried over from previous meetings. Any tasks completed in the meantime can be marked as done. It may be useful to document the completion of the task in a short entry and attach relevant outcome documents as attachments. This helps with complete project documentation.
You can immediately create new topics for the next meeting and jot down your ideas, thoughts, and notes in a first entry as tags.
You now have an agenda version of the next meeting minutes. If you wish to print this agenda version or send it to the participants for preparation, click on the “Meeting Minutes Preview” entry in the menu. You will then receive a PDF version of the prepared meeting minutes for printing or sending via email.
Take notes & send
iPROT is fundamentally designed for ease of use, leading quickly to the desired result – the meeting minutes. Therefore, you can also write the meeting minutes with iPROT during a meeting, if you wish.
It may make sense to display the screen content to other participants via projector projection to increase acceptance of the recorded discussion content.
If projector projection is not possible or desired, you should read out the essential entries and especially the agreements and decisions again before the end of the meeting. This allows any feedback from participants to be incorporated directly into the meeting minutes.
Of course, you can also compile the meeting minutes at your leisure after the meeting.
Sending the meeting minutes with iPROT is done in two clicks. Simply select the Send meeting minutes entry from the menu and confirm by clicking the Send button.
iPROT will then send an email with the download link to your meeting minutes to all persons listed in the mailing list.
Book Recommendations for Meeting Minutes
If you wish to delve deeper into writing meeting minutes, we recommend the book “Duden Praxis kompakt – Protokolle, Berichte und Memos verfassen” by Judith Engst or the book “Protokolle erstellen: Gezielt mitschreiben und ausformulieren. Die erfolgreichsten Methoden, Tipps und Strategien (Schneller & Leichter Lernen)” by Nicole Langer.
