Run successful meetings Step 14 - Share the output and meeting minutes

Welcome to the 15 steps to run successful meetings. This is step number 14: share the output and notes with the relevant people. With the relevant people, well, that's going to include all the people in the meeting, but it may also include people who didn't attend but need to receive the output or are going to be involved in some of those follow-up actions. So you're going to share the output and notes with the relevant people. Now, When it comes to the output, if you don't share the output, why did you bother creating it in the first place? Very little of our work involves working in a group and then keeping the output just to ourselves. You're producing something valuable, something important in your meeting. Well, a key part of finishing and making sure that people are aware what's happened is sharing the output with the people who need it. And in addition to the output, which forms the basis of your minutes, You should also include some notes and minutes. Now, what does this mean? It means list the topics that you talked about so that somebody can look at the minutes and go, oh, we talked about this. Or if they weren't in the meeting, they're aware of the specific topics that were covered. Also include any questions that need to be answered, any actions, who is going to do what and by when. And if there's questions to answer, there should be an action attached to it. Who's going to ask the question? Who are they asking it to? What is the question and when does it need to be asked or answered? And lastly, any decisions, decisions that were made in the meeting that were important, or decisions that need to be made at some point soon. Again, if there are decisions being made and that haven't been made yet, there should be an action attached to it. Who's going to make the decision? Who's going to ask them? What is the decision that needs to be made? And when will it happen? Who, what, and when for all of these 3. What the meeting minutes are not is a complete transcript of the conversation. No one's going to read a complete transcript of a conversation. It's not like we're in court and there's a court stenographer capturing absolutely every word that is said. That's not what meetings at work are about. You don't need a complete transcript. What you need is the output. That's why you were there to create it. And you need a simple description of the topics, the questions, actions, and decisions. Now, if you don't do this, what happens if you don't send minutes? Well, there is a much, much lower chance that the questions will be answered, that any actions are completed, and that people use the output. If you produced an output, there's a reason for it, so people are likely to use it. And if you don't share that, no one's going to use it. So yes, individuals in the meeting may have taken their own notes, may be aware of their own actions, But when you send out good, clear minutes along with the output, you greatly increase the chances that these things will happen. So how do you do it? How do you send out the output and the notes? Well, first of all, finalize the output. Perhaps it needs to be tidied or formatted in a certain way. Let's say you— the purpose of the meeting was to come up with a list of 5 ideas to solve a problem. Well, someone needs to write up those 5 ideas in a neat way, so that it can be shared. So finalize the output, complete any minutes and notes, write down the questions, actions, decisions for each of the topics, then send it to the participants and send it to other relevant people. All the people in the meeting should get a copy, and anyone else who is either directly impacted or needs to know about it should get it as well. Really, the overall rule is share it with anyone impacted by the output, that thing that you gathered everyone together in the meeting to produce. So this is how you send minutes. It's very simple. You're not creating a transcript of the entire conversation. You're focusing on the key points. You're sharing that output and making sure everyone gets the valuable content that was produced during that meeting. And that is step 14. Make sure you share the notes with the relevant people.