Following up after meeting

By the end of meeting, meeting holder briefs those agreed decision in the meeting, lists down action items,  identifies action owners, and aligns the deadline of completion.  Most of the work has already been done by the time the meeting is over. But there are some crucial things left to do that can reinforce what you achieved or quickly help undo it.

 

Distribute meeting minutes

·         Time.  Write the meeting minutes as soon as possible after the meeting, when everything is still fresh in mind. One or two days will be perfect.

·         Elements. Meeting minutes should be highly summarized and brief instead of detail recording. There are five key elements including:

1.       Heading. Company name, date, location, and time of meeting starting and ending

2.       Attendee. Name of person conducting the meeting; job title or department for internal meeting; job title with company name for external meeting

3.       Outcome. Decision, agreement and commitment.

4.       Action items with time and owner.  A separate sheet of action items will be created so that every attendee can see clearly which action items belong them and when they need to finish.

5.       Next meeting time and place.  A note on where and when the next meeting will be held.

Follow up and Listen

The meeting holder needs to follow up with participants regularly before next  meeting to ensure action items are under way. Because many meeting participants fail to follow their action items until the day of next meeting.  At the same time, the meeting holder need to listen to action owners and get their feedbacks, work with them to investigate the problem deeply, consider the strategy of next meeting if some action items can't finish within the deadline.