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How to take meeting minutes
What good meeting minutes contain, how to take them before, during and after the call, a template you can copy, and how Cedric turns the minutes into actions.
Benjamin Ben HattarMinutes are the record of what a meeting changed. They say what was decided, who now owes what, and by when. They are not a transcript, and they are not a summary of the conversation either. A good test is whether someone who missed the meeting can read the minutes in two minutes and know what they have to do.
Most minutes fail that test in one of two ways. Some record the discussion and bury the decision in the fourth paragraph. Others list "action items" with no name and no date, which is a list of wishes.
- Minutes record outcomes. The decisions, the actions and the questions still open matter more than who said what.
- Every action item needs one owner, one verb and one date. Without all three it will not happen.
- Write decisions down while the room is still there to correct you, then send the minutes the same day.
- Keep what was decided apart from what was only discussed. The open items are usually the more useful half.
- Cedric takes the minutes in the call and posts them to the channel, and every commitment becomes an action that waits for approval.
What good minutes contain
The header. Name of the meeting, date, who attended, who was missing. Keep it to two lines. Nobody reads it until there is an argument about who was there, and then it matters a lot.
Decisions. Each one in a sentence, stated as settled: "Paid social restarts Monday at the previous budget." Add the reason in a few words if someone will ask later. A decision written as "we discussed paid social" is not a decision.
Action items. An owner, a verb, a thing and a date. "Devin sends Halcyon the security pack by Thursday." One owner per item, even when three people will help. If nobody took it, write "no owner" and put it on the next agenda.
Open questions. What came up and did not get settled. These are what the next meeting is for, and they are the part people forget first.
The next meeting. When it is, and which open items it starts with.
Leave out the debate, the jokes and the slide someone could not get to load. If a quote matters, one line of it is enough.
How to take them
Most of the work happens before and after the call. During it, you listen for three kinds of sentence.
- 01
Before: start from the agenda
Copy the agenda into the template below, one heading per item. Carry over last meeting's open items and action items too, so you can mark each one done or still open.
- 02
During: catch decisions as they land
Listen for three things. "Let's go with" is a decision. "I'll do it" is an action. "We should figure out" is an open question. Write those and let the rest go by.
When a decision sounds half-made, ask the room: "So we're restarting Monday, at the old budget?" Ten seconds now saves an argument about the minutes later.
- 03
During: read the actions back
Save the last three minutes to read the action list aloud, with names and dates. People correct a date in the room. Nobody corrects one by email.
- 04
After: clean up the same day
Tidy the wording, check every action has an owner and a date, and send the minutes within a few hours. Minutes that arrive two days later read like history.
- 05
After: send them where the work happens
Send the minutes to the attendees and to anyone who owes something and missed the call. Put them in the channel or the shared folder the team already reads, not only in one person's email.
- 06
Next time: open with the open items
The next meeting starts from the last minutes. What closed, what did not, and why. This one habit makes minutes worth taking.
A meeting minutes template you can copy
Paste this into your notes before the meeting. Each line is the format to fill in.
- 01
Header
[Meeting name], [date], [start time] to [end time]. Present: [names]. Absent: [names]. Minutes by: [name].
- 02
Carried over
From last time: [action], [owner], [done / still open, and why].
- 03
Decisions
1. [What was decided, stated as settled]. Reason: [a few words].
- 04
Action items
1. [Owner] will [verb] [what] by [date].
One owner per line. If nobody took it, write "no owner" and carry it to the next agenda.
- 05
Open questions
1. [Question]. Next step: [who looks into it, or "next meeting"].
- 06
Next meeting
[Date and time]. Opens with: [the open questions above].
The template, filled in
Weekly growth sync, Monday, 10:00 to 10:31. Present: Lena, Devin, Tomas, Sophie, Lucia, Hannah. Minutes by Lucia.
Decisions. 1. Paid social restarts next Monday at the previous budget. 2. The pricing page test runs two more weeks, because it has not reached significance.
Action items. 1. Devin sends Halcyon the security pack by Thursday.
Open questions. 1. Nobody owns the Q3 forecast rewrite yet. Next step: next meeting. 2. The tracking issue from the site migration is unresolved. Next step: Tomas looks into it.
Next meeting. Monday, 10:00. Opens with the forecast owner.
How Cedric takes the minutes
Taking minutes and taking part are hard to do at once. Whoever holds the pen says less, and the person who talks most is rarely the one writing. So we built Cedric to do the writing.
You invite him the way you invite a colleague. Paste the call link in the thread, or add his address to the calendar invite; on a recurring series, once covers every meeting. He joins as a visible participant in Google Meet, Zoom or Microsoft Teams and takes notes for the whole call. If someone says "Cedric, what did we ship last week?", he answers from your connected tools. Otherwise he stays quiet.
When the call ends he posts the minutes to the channel. Decisions are listed as decisions. Things raised and left hanging are listed as open. Each commitment he heard becomes a proposed action, with who said it, waiting for someone to approve it. He takes no action during the call itself. A meeting is full of things people say and take back two minutes later, and the approval step catches those.
After the call
The minutes, and the action they turned into.
CedricAPP9:14 AM
Weekly growth sync, 31 minutes, six attendees. Decisions: paid social restarts Monday at the previous budget, and the pricing page test is extended two weeks for significance. Open: nobody owns the Q3 forecast rewrite yet, and the tracking issue from the site migration is unresolved. One action queued for approval: send Halcyon the security pack, which Devin offered to do. Full notes attached.
Three ways to get minutes
| By hand | A transcript | Cedric | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your attention in the call | Split between talking and writing | On the call | On the call |
| Decisions kept apart from discussion | If the note-taker is good | No, it is everything said | Yes, decided and open listed separately |
| Action items with owners | If someone reads them back | You find them yourself | Yes, with who said it |
| Where the minutes go | Wherever the note-taker sends them | A file someone has to open | The channel, when the call ends |
| What happens to the actions | Someone does them, or not | Someone does them, or not | Each one waits for approval, then gets done |
Approved actions go into the tools you already use. A recap email to the other side, a task in Linear, Asana or Notion, the next meeting proposed on the calendar. A quiet owner gets a nudge before the next call. More on that in automating meeting follow-ups, and the full setup is in Cedric in meetings.
What still needs a person
Tell the room Cedric is there. Rules on recording and note-taking differ from place to place, and some require every participant's consent. Saying so at the start is courteous and often required.
Formal minutes, for a board or a committee, are a record someone signs. Let Cedric draft them, and have the secretary or the chair read and approve them before they go on file.
Bad audio makes bad minutes, for a person or for Cedric. Crosstalk and six people talking at once blur who said what.
FAQ
The meeting, date and attendees, then the decisions, the action items with an owner and a date each, the open questions, and when the next meeting is.
No. A transcript is everything said. Minutes are what the meeting decided and who does what next, usually in under a page.
The same day, ideally within a few hours. Cedric posts them to the channel as soon as the call ends.
Someone who does not need to argue a point in that meeting. The chair is the worst choice. If everyone needs to talk, invite Cedric and let him write.
Yes. Cedric joins the call, takes the notes, keeps decisions apart from open questions, and queues each commitment as an action for your approval. See how approvals work.
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