I think that f2f meetings with real people are in the past and any self-respect online meetings software allows recordings. So, what on the mother earth are u talking about
How to take meeting notes
41–50 of 130 posts
Re: How to take meeting notes
#42Hey HN, I’m the author. Just to clarify: the process is for long personal meetings with people I know and respect, where we discuss ideas and things we’re curious about.
Re: How to take meeting notes
#43I have been to maybe 3 meetings in my entire life that were valuable and couldn't have been summed up in a three paragraph email.
Re: How to take meeting notes
#44A long time ago, my boss at the time taught me a valuable lesson: every meeting needs an official record(/log/minutes/whatever) documenting all noteworthy decisions (D), tasks (T, with deadline and responsible person), and information communicated (I), with that record being sent to all participants by end-of-day. The reasoning being simple: If anything of consequence was discussed in the meeting, then the official r…
I think detailed notes aren't as critical as just documenting decisions. Anything not written down is forgotten. This is why I prefer having critical conversations over slack. Every word is preserved in context.
Re: How to take meeting notes
#45A long time ago, my boss at the time taught me a valuable lesson: every meeting needs an official record(/log/minutes/whatever) documenting all noteworthy decisions (D), tasks (T, with deadline and responsible person), and information communicated (I), with that record being sent to all participants by end-of-day. The reasoning being simple: If anything of consequence was discussed in the meeting, then the official r…
I once worked somewhere that had an employee who took notes during every meeting, to what seemed like an annoying level. After every meeting, he emailed everyone who attended the meeting a copy of his notes. A couple jobs later, we were discussing changing where some images were hosted. It seemed very strange to have them in their current location, and the process that copied new images to that location was clunky. M…
> I once worked somewhere that had an employee who took notes during every meeting, to what seemed like an annoying level. After every meeting, he emailed everyone who attended the meeting a copy of his notes.
Can you share what company was that? If not the company name, at least the industry?
Re: How to take meeting notes
#46A long time ago, my boss at the time taught me a valuable lesson: every meeting needs an official record(/log/minutes/whatever) documenting all noteworthy decisions (D), tasks (T, with deadline and responsible person), and information communicated (I), with that record being sent to all participants by end-of-day. The reasoning being simple: If anything of consequence was discussed in the meeting, then the official r…
> A long time ago, my boss at the time taught me a valuable lesson: every meeting needs an official record(/log/minutes/whatever) documenting all noteworthy decisions (D), tasks (T, with deadline and responsible person), and information communicated (I), with that record being sent to all participants by end-of-day.
"Who does What by When" is the overarching management philosophy of such meeting notes. In projects which I lead, I have a dedicated person every meeting to document these notes. Totally worth it and it's now a must for all of my projects.
Re: How to take meeting notes
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
I once worked somewhere that had an employee who took notes during every meeting, to what seemed like an annoying level. After every meeting, he emailed everyone who attended the meeting a copy of his notes. A couple jobs later, we were discussing changing where some images were hosted. It seemed very strange to have them in their current location, and the process that copied new images to that location was clunky. M…
> I once worked somewhere that had an employee who took notes during every meeting, to what seemed like an annoying level. After every meeting, he emailed everyone who attended the meeting a copy of his notes. Can you share what company was that? If not the company name, at least the industry?
I used to do that.
Hmm... I probably should pickup the habit again. When you move around projects, sometimes you forget about the "good habits" from previous projects...
Re: How to take meeting notes
#48> If I’m taking this meeting, then I better pay attention to it. And if it’s not worth my full attention, then I shouldn’t spend time on it.
Yeah, most of us just end up shoved into lots of meetings we shouldn't be in that we don't care about, or having a meeting we do care about co-opted by a discussion that's irrelevant to us.
if i could _only_ be in good meetings i'd do a dramatically better job at remembering them all too.
Re: How to take meeting notes
#49A long time ago, my boss at the time taught me a valuable lesson: every meeting needs an official record(/log/minutes/whatever) documenting all noteworthy decisions (D), tasks (T, with deadline and responsible person), and information communicated (I), with that record being sent to all participants by end-of-day. The reasoning being simple: If anything of consequence was discussed in the meeting, then the official r…
Roberts Rules indicates that the secretary (the one who records the meeting) is one of the most important roles. To the point: according to Roberts Rules, the #1 most important item in all meetings is finalizing the meeting notes from the previous meeting (ie: Everyone agrees that the stated meeting notes are correct). Every meeting, according to Roberts Rules, starts with an understanding that everyone at the new me…
Personally, I prefer to pre-empt this situation by an explicit agreement on Action Items (Who does What by When) during the meeting itself. I have a dedicated note taker who has been coached to ensure this takes place.
Re: How to take meeting notes
#50The premise here is that meetings are chock-full of valuable and dense information. This is not true. Most meetings are, in fact, a waste of time. There are also various linguistic theories that argue that actual information density (in spoken/written language) is significantly less than 95%. So the corollary here is that remembering 95% of a meeting is a waste of cognitive capacity. The better strategy would be to b…
You're totally right, and I should have clarified that the process I describe is for long informal conversations with thought partners, focused primarily on exploring interesting ideas.