Meeting scribe is a core skill for admin professionals at any level. In the course of my career, I’ve changed industries several times. For today’s post, I’ll share my five tips for taking minutes when the topic is complex and over your head: meeting review, question code, transcribe, note actions, and training.
My first full-time admin role was in the Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) department at Fred Hutch. One my tasks was to record the minutes at the monthly safety committees, which were on a rotation between the Radiation, Biological, and Health & Safety.
I have a BA in technical theater: stage management and design. My math and science skills were fine – I was a B student but I took very few science courses in college. Certainly nothing on any of these topics so I had to learn on the job. What I lacked in technical knowledge, I make up for with curiosity and a desire to learn near things.
Every job I’ve had involved taking meeting minutes. After EH&S, I transferred to Public Health Sciences where I took notes on a wide range of topics: women’s cancer, cancer prevention, bone marrow transplant, cardiology, cardiothoracic surgery, surgical sterile supply, endoscopy, surgical safety committee, data security, smoking cessation, corporate sales and reliability engineering.
I started all of those jobs with zero knowledge of the topics but I developed a system. My meeting minutes have been repeatedly praised for their high quality.
The purpose of telling you this is that you don’t have to start with an understanding of the topic, but over time, if you following these tips, you can become very good at taking minutes.
Meeting Review
Start with the agenda, whether you are responsible for creating it or you work with the Chairperson. The Chair wants good minutes. If you’re new, demonstrate you want to learn more and a willingness to improve. Take notes. In order to learn a new topic, you’ll need to listen, record and regurgitate the information. Schedule review time and they’ll probably be happy to answer questions – up to a point.
After the meeting, clean up your minutes and ask the Chairperson to review, comment and make corrections. At first, you’ll get the acronyms wrong, you’ll misspell the lingo. That’s ok. You’ll learn so much from the review meetings. Ask specifically for feedback on your minutes then use that information to improve your skill.
Over time, the reviews will go more quickly with fewer edits. Your Chair may decide you ready to fly free and skip the review.
Develop your code for questions
Note taking is a core skill, whether you’re taking minutes or making a note to complete a task later. If you’re not in habit of taking notes, start now.
Develop your own code for asking questions – highlight text or insert a specific symbol to alert you that you need to ask someone for clarification. You may go back to the Chair or someone else in the meeting. Whatever the case, keep it simple to serve as your reminder to follow-up.
Meetings tend to move at the speed of light and you may not be able to stop the meeting to ask the group what something means or ask people to repeat what they said – unless it is of legal or HR importance, then, yes, ask during the meeting.
Use attendee initials if your meeting requires you to track who’s speaking.
Transcribe the meeting
I’ve tried several minute taking methods: hand written, typing and recording. I found I can’t write fast enough to take effective notes. Recording then reviewing the audio later was problematic for several reasons:
- In a large meeting room, people far away from my recording device can’t be heard
- When new or subbing for another admin, I don’t know most of the attendees so I can’t figure out who’s talking
- There’s never enough time afterwards to spend 3 times the length of the meeting to listen to the recording
I transcribe the meeting, like a court reporter, on a laptop.
Don’t try to summarize the material DURING the meeting. Focus on recording.You already know what the agenda is about, you’ve asked the Chair your pre-meeting questions. Record the discussion, forget about grammar, spelling, formatting and punctuation.
Develop a system that works for you. Use the agenda as the outline for the doc or just type and copy/paste the meeting notes into a new doc after you’ve cleaned it up. The point is, keep it simple so you can work quickly and send the minutes out quickly.
I recommend blocking 1.5 – 2 hours after the meeting to finalize the minutes. Use this time block to clean the document up and write the summary. The meeting is still there in your short term memory. It won’t be there in the morning.
Pay attention to tasks
Whether or not your minutes serve as a legal document (board meetings, safety committees, etc), tracking actions is the most important function of minutes. Without group alignment on actions, that meeting should be an email or a document.
During the meeting, pay close attention to call-outs and action items. If it’s not made clear during the discussion, speak up and ask for clarification on the action, owner(s) and deadline.
Take basic training
When I worked at EH&S, I started a habit: I took every basic safety course the techs were required to take: radiation, chemical, biological, general safety. Taking the training everyone else takes shows your sincere desire to understand the material, gives you an opportunity to ask more questions and you learn the language of your team.
Learn about the topic. Find and sign up for training the rest of the group is required to take. If there isn’t training in that area, ask your Chairperson or executive to recommend reading or an online class. Chances are, if you’re learning for the job, your employer will pay for you to go.
Then do the work, ask questions, request feedback. People want to tell you all about their own business. You can see it on their faces. They love to geek out on their specific area of expertise. Let them! You’ll learn so much, earn trust and who knows? You might find that you are fascinated by the topic and want to learn even more.
Find a mentor. Perhaps your executive is too busy to be your mentor but there is someone in your group who would be happy to show you the ropes.
Taking meeting minutes and notes are core administrative skills. Every admin joins their group with little to no knowledge of their team’s subject. Hold meeting reviews pre- and post- meeting with the chair. Develop your own systems to track questions to ask after the meeting. Transcribe minutes during the meeting. Listen closely for tasks. Be curious. Learn about the business.
Understanding your executive’s business is a key skill toward becoming a strategic partner. You can do it!
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