After the Meeting

Once your meeting is over, it’s time to get back to work!

Almost.

Actually, it’s time for you to sit down and put all your notes together to send back to the meeting attendees—assuming, of course, that you are the note taker. Regardless, the responsibility is on you to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to review the notes and provide additional input or feedback. This allows everyone to continue making progress in a unified fashion, based on the outcome of the meeting.

Good meeting notes will provide everyone with a clear accounting of what occurred in the meeting and what their objectives and responsibilities are moving forward (Figure 16.3). Your meeting notes should clearly indicate action items and who is responsible for completing those tasks, as well as any decision points that needed to be resolved. Treat your meeting notes as a paper trail, and file them away with your other project documentation, along with any modifications or conversations about those notes.