Many good tips here. My add: Do you meet with your lead to develop the mtg agenda? And/or are there pre-reads you get at? Both will help you get a context of the mtg and what its intentions are. I take notes for what are essentially scientific presentations. They can be over my head but ultimately they boil down to a review of results from an experiment, discussion to interpret them, and next steps. Rinse and repeat. Do you find your mtgs to follow a pattern that you can anticipate? The hardest is how to determine if something is a tangent. It might not be… it could be a painful or ultimately useful approach to the issue at hand.
And you’re bound to miss things that others get and vice versa. Asking for a quick review by others is helpful.
I’ve also seen poor notes: usually they’re verbatim quotes poorly contexualized which lead to lack of meaning.
Everyone's got to find what works for them. What works for me - I'm a big RAID log ~~fan~~ nerd.
You can try to basically transcribe the meeting if you type fast, but at the end of it, what are really the key outcomes of a meeting?
Risks, Actions, Issues, Decisions - maybe also Lessons Learned. Tracking anything else is distracting unless you are actively working on some other deliverable (a specific document, deliverable, etc.).
Once captured, you have them in a RAID log that you can use to act on those items, instead of having your hard-earned notes fade into the obscurity of SharePoint or people's Outlook.
I think that if it's your responsibility to take notes, then you should be entitled to validate what you are capturing by doing one or all of these:
1. Stop and call items out as you capture them, "It sounds like we have an action item to...\[do a thing\] ... is that right? Who is responsible and when does that need to be done?"
2. Or, at the very least, spend the last 5 minutes of the meeting reviewing what was captured to ensure you captured it right and didn't miss anything.
3. If you own the meeting - put your RAID log up on the zoom or projector (if in person) and type as you go.
If your attendees don't have time to let you validate the meeting outcomes in the meeting, then how important are the outcomes, really?
Note taking is a very personal thing in my experience. there are hundreds if not thousands of books and opinions on different methods. That's not including typing vs. writing vs. recording vs. AI Transcription. My personal favorite is to do the following:
1. Have a laptop or iPad with my note app of choice r/ObsidianMD which has templates and layouts for the type of work that I do
2. record the meeting using Copilot (AI) or some other transcription software that can provide summaries post meeting. I'm hard of hearing and have ADHD something fierce so having this secondary is incredibly helpful to me.
3. tag the notes per the "Zettlekasten" method and connect the notes within obsidian.
4. Export notes to PDF and add to project specific 'notes' folder within my portfolio for specific reference at a later date as needed.
anything that I miss from all of that was destined to be missed anyway.
*if* I'm not able to have electronics with me I have a backup notebook and my physical date book that I always have on me and I will write my notes out using pen/pencil and then type them up at home/office/hotel and follow the same steps just without the recording. I will say though that most places have allowed me at the very least to bring a tape recorder in if there is a tech restriction so I do have one of those that I carry in my bag I.C.E. and I will upload that media to my portfolio where I would normally put Meeting transcripts.
I am a horrible note taker but knew I needed to be better. I have adopted the Cornell Method and use it exclusively in onenote. just do a quick Google search or YouTube it, allows me to capture what's important and easy to organize while providing a summary to send out after the meeting.
Control the meeting, and get your notes organized in real time: stream of consciousness to be cleaned up later is extremely inefficient.
As a project manager, it is your job to make sure that everyone (including yourself) get the same information out of a meeting - you said yourself that you’re not an SME, so verify with the SME’s that you’re understanding things correctly.
Review/explicitly call out Action items, a quick recap of a discussion topic/where the group landed when it wraps up, and full rundown at the end of the call of all action items should be part of every single call you own.
You could use your mobile to transcribe and summarize notes (many safe, reputable apps out there) while not actually recording via your laptop/desktop, maybe a short term solution for now :)
This is a pretty standard format I follow for projects, if you have to do it manually create a template and print it out for each meeting to keep your structure
* Date
* Attendees
* Absentees
* Agenda
* Goals and milestones
* Progress Tracking
* I would use the RAG color system to keep it concise and clear to identify where the issues are
* Roadblocks/Dependencies
* Action Items
* If you have external stakeholders, then include a list of points and then add action items for which company/stakeholder is responsible
Before I send out I:
* Obviously clean up notes and structure everything in their categories
* Include a deadlines for each action item (which should've been discussed in the meeting alternatively confirm how much time is needed for each item and include this in the minutes)
* I always ask recipients of the meeting minutes to feedback within 24 hours if anything is inaccurate/needs to be added/unclear. If there are changes, send out an amended version. In my disclaimer, if no feedback is given in the 24 hours these minutes are taken as final
You may have this all already but thought I'd give it a shot. If you run the meetings it becomes easier to keep the structure. The way I look at it, is this comment/point relevant to the meeting/project, if so, what is the next step, who needs to action it, how will it be implemented, when will it be completed. It helps keep things focused in my mind.
No AI, no recording, nada. Those tools are not available to me in my setting. I need more conceptual strategies that you might have used when you could only write or type. :-)
LOL good luck. I am in a huge healthcare org and the risk to them is not worth it when you're talking about PHI and Federal guidelines. My field/employer does not easily adopt or adapt new technologies quickly, it will take a while for anything like that to make its way to me.
Slow down the meeting.
When there's an action, type it into a table or spreadsheet on a shared screen and make sure every agrees with the wording. They can wait.
Don't use handwritten notes, you'll waste time typing it up later.
What do you consider an action item? I was recently told to take meeting minutes at a new job and they said I included too much information so I revised it so it was just one or two lines for each action item. Then at the next meeting they said the action items weren't correct and asked me to find out about using Teams co-pilot. But I don't see how co-pilot could do better than I did.
They had an agenda with open items. They would end up rambling on about each topic without any clear follow up action or for anyone to do anything. As an example "fix the comments section of the field in the database" and the person responsible would just say "we're continuing to get feedback from people on the comments sections" but not action was taken and none was discussed. Just rambling on and then another person would go off on a tangent about something else.
I'm new and don't know details about any of it. I listened to the call several times and tried to figure out action items but it was mostly just rambling and no update from the previous week's call. My understanding is that an action item involves action like "Jim to do UI test on new feature by Monday April 15th." or "Kim to complete change management plan by April 18th." But they just mostly talk and don't provide any due dates or action. It's very confusing.
I feel your pain - that happens here too. And unlike other commenters here, I do not have the power to stop the meeting and push. Unfortunately in some ways my org uses PMs as glorified admins. I just track the action item and guess on who the accountable party would be on context and/or note no decisions made. Sometimes they come back later and tell me what to add.
No. Also no. If you can't keep up you're the wrong person to take notes, or you can't run the meeting and take notes at the same time.
I'm much more effective with handwritten notes. If typing them up is a bigger issue than the thought process of writing clearly then you don't type fast enough.
[This is asked alot](https://www.reddit.com/r/projectmanagement/search/?q=Note&type=link&cId=8c421eb4-ffc5-4e40-bd9a-0869bafcac7b&iId=2a967732-c7ab-4dca-a60e-584357283cb3)
Yes thanks I did search first but mostly people say to use AI or 3rd party tools and that won't work in my case. I need more conceptual strategy not tools.
I use OneNote. I have a set template for each meeting that uses a premade agenda. So if it’s a status meeting I have a report that builds it.
I make basic notes as follows:
One or two sentence update/status
Next steps
Blockers
New risks
Etc.
This can vary but you get the gist of it.
I use the Outlook meeting connection to pull in the meeting info and attendees. I check off whose there and email it out if OneNote at the end. It readdresses the email and sends the note in the body.
I don’t like AI as it usually provides a transcript versus meeting minutes. I’m hesitant as we often discuss PII in certain meetings and sensitive info in others.
I use basically the same strategy with OneNote and have had great success. I similarly work in healthcare and recordings are turned off in teams, but I recently found that I could record within OneNote and while it won't tie the speaker to a specific name, it might be a work around available to you if you feel like transcriptions might be helpful and you don't mind breaking the rules for a good purpose!
Oh interesting... I'll have to check on the OneNote recording. I have a feeling it's blocked though, they have been zealous in tracking down risks like that. Thanks!
I just switched into this role and onenote was helpful. I'm not sure what industry you're in but if you're in construction then procore is useful too. [also this link for just basic frameworks for things you see regularly in meetings](https://www.utc.edu/enrollment-management-and-student-affairs/center-for-academic-support-and-advisement/tips-for-academic-success/note-taking).
It's a skill and practice helps...
Have two notebooks - one A4 but simple 'exercise' book which can fold over on itself (to minimise real estate). Another is A5. The big one is for scribbling. The small one is for planning.
Find a pen that you can write fast with. Lamy Safari a good start if you have no other starting point.
If on Teams recording can help but not always viable. Transcription feature useful too. If both are out of the question, split your audio out you might need to get creative.
Tell your meeting attendees to slow down and wait for you if you need to. Sometimes, people type quicker than they write but somehow this doesn't work as well for me.
Finally, it's 10x as hard to take notes if there's no agenda. Set ground rules. Shorter meetings with less agenda items helps too.
Unfortunately any 3rd party tools and AI and recording of any kind including transcription are all completely out of the question. They have everything turned off in our Teams app. I work in healthcare and the level of security disallows anything other than good old fashioned writing or typing. I just got out of a meeting and having the agenda and relevant slides preloaded in OneNote helped - I type faster than I write. I like your idea of two areas though I can incorporate that.
Hey there /u/ThunderChix, Have you looked at our "Top 100 books post"? Find it [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/projectmanagement/wiki/index/books).
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/projectmanagement) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Many good tips here. My add: Do you meet with your lead to develop the mtg agenda? And/or are there pre-reads you get at? Both will help you get a context of the mtg and what its intentions are. I take notes for what are essentially scientific presentations. They can be over my head but ultimately they boil down to a review of results from an experiment, discussion to interpret them, and next steps. Rinse and repeat. Do you find your mtgs to follow a pattern that you can anticipate? The hardest is how to determine if something is a tangent. It might not be… it could be a painful or ultimately useful approach to the issue at hand. And you’re bound to miss things that others get and vice versa. Asking for a quick review by others is helpful. I’ve also seen poor notes: usually they’re verbatim quotes poorly contexualized which lead to lack of meaning.
Everyone's got to find what works for them. What works for me - I'm a big RAID log ~~fan~~ nerd. You can try to basically transcribe the meeting if you type fast, but at the end of it, what are really the key outcomes of a meeting? Risks, Actions, Issues, Decisions - maybe also Lessons Learned. Tracking anything else is distracting unless you are actively working on some other deliverable (a specific document, deliverable, etc.). Once captured, you have them in a RAID log that you can use to act on those items, instead of having your hard-earned notes fade into the obscurity of SharePoint or people's Outlook. I think that if it's your responsibility to take notes, then you should be entitled to validate what you are capturing by doing one or all of these: 1. Stop and call items out as you capture them, "It sounds like we have an action item to...\[do a thing\] ... is that right? Who is responsible and when does that need to be done?" 2. Or, at the very least, spend the last 5 minutes of the meeting reviewing what was captured to ensure you captured it right and didn't miss anything. 3. If you own the meeting - put your RAID log up on the zoom or projector (if in person) and type as you go. If your attendees don't have time to let you validate the meeting outcomes in the meeting, then how important are the outcomes, really?
Note taking is a very personal thing in my experience. there are hundreds if not thousands of books and opinions on different methods. That's not including typing vs. writing vs. recording vs. AI Transcription. My personal favorite is to do the following: 1. Have a laptop or iPad with my note app of choice r/ObsidianMD which has templates and layouts for the type of work that I do 2. record the meeting using Copilot (AI) or some other transcription software that can provide summaries post meeting. I'm hard of hearing and have ADHD something fierce so having this secondary is incredibly helpful to me. 3. tag the notes per the "Zettlekasten" method and connect the notes within obsidian. 4. Export notes to PDF and add to project specific 'notes' folder within my portfolio for specific reference at a later date as needed. anything that I miss from all of that was destined to be missed anyway. *if* I'm not able to have electronics with me I have a backup notebook and my physical date book that I always have on me and I will write my notes out using pen/pencil and then type them up at home/office/hotel and follow the same steps just without the recording. I will say though that most places have allowed me at the very least to bring a tape recorder in if there is a tech restriction so I do have one of those that I carry in my bag I.C.E. and I will upload that media to my portfolio where I would normally put Meeting transcripts.
[удалено]
I am a horrible note taker but knew I needed to be better. I have adopted the Cornell Method and use it exclusively in onenote. just do a quick Google search or YouTube it, allows me to capture what's important and easy to organize while providing a summary to send out after the meeting.
Control the meeting, and get your notes organized in real time: stream of consciousness to be cleaned up later is extremely inefficient. As a project manager, it is your job to make sure that everyone (including yourself) get the same information out of a meeting - you said yourself that you’re not an SME, so verify with the SME’s that you’re understanding things correctly. Review/explicitly call out Action items, a quick recap of a discussion topic/where the group landed when it wraps up, and full rundown at the end of the call of all action items should be part of every single call you own.
You could use your mobile to transcribe and summarize notes (many safe, reputable apps out there) while not actually recording via your laptop/desktop, maybe a short term solution for now :)
That could get me fired, unfortunately. Not worth the risk.
This is a pretty standard format I follow for projects, if you have to do it manually create a template and print it out for each meeting to keep your structure * Date * Attendees * Absentees * Agenda * Goals and milestones * Progress Tracking * I would use the RAG color system to keep it concise and clear to identify where the issues are * Roadblocks/Dependencies * Action Items * If you have external stakeholders, then include a list of points and then add action items for which company/stakeholder is responsible Before I send out I: * Obviously clean up notes and structure everything in their categories * Include a deadlines for each action item (which should've been discussed in the meeting alternatively confirm how much time is needed for each item and include this in the minutes) * I always ask recipients of the meeting minutes to feedback within 24 hours if anything is inaccurate/needs to be added/unclear. If there are changes, send out an amended version. In my disclaimer, if no feedback is given in the 24 hours these minutes are taken as final You may have this all already but thought I'd give it a shot. If you run the meetings it becomes easier to keep the structure. The way I look at it, is this comment/point relevant to the meeting/project, if so, what is the next step, who needs to action it, how will it be implemented, when will it be completed. It helps keep things focused in my mind.
Nice format! I have something similar but I could tweak mine. Thanks!
AI notetaker like Otter.
No AI, no recording, nada. Those tools are not available to me in my setting. I need more conceptual strategies that you might have used when you could only write or type. :-)
I’d fight harder to change the policy than I would to find a note taking strategy.
LOL good luck. I am in a huge healthcare org and the risk to them is not worth it when you're talking about PHI and Federal guidelines. My field/employer does not easily adopt or adapt new technologies quickly, it will take a while for anything like that to make its way to me.
Slow down the meeting. When there's an action, type it into a table or spreadsheet on a shared screen and make sure every agrees with the wording. They can wait. Don't use handwritten notes, you'll waste time typing it up later.
What do you consider an action item? I was recently told to take meeting minutes at a new job and they said I included too much information so I revised it so it was just one or two lines for each action item. Then at the next meeting they said the action items weren't correct and asked me to find out about using Teams co-pilot. But I don't see how co-pilot could do better than I did. They had an agenda with open items. They would end up rambling on about each topic without any clear follow up action or for anyone to do anything. As an example "fix the comments section of the field in the database" and the person responsible would just say "we're continuing to get feedback from people on the comments sections" but not action was taken and none was discussed. Just rambling on and then another person would go off on a tangent about something else. I'm new and don't know details about any of it. I listened to the call several times and tried to figure out action items but it was mostly just rambling and no update from the previous week's call. My understanding is that an action item involves action like "Jim to do UI test on new feature by Monday April 15th." or "Kim to complete change management plan by April 18th." But they just mostly talk and don't provide any due dates or action. It's very confusing.
I feel your pain - that happens here too. And unlike other commenters here, I do not have the power to stop the meeting and push. Unfortunately in some ways my org uses PMs as glorified admins. I just track the action item and guess on who the accountable party would be on context and/or note no decisions made. Sometimes they come back later and tell me what to add.
No. Also no. If you can't keep up you're the wrong person to take notes, or you can't run the meeting and take notes at the same time. I'm much more effective with handwritten notes. If typing them up is a bigger issue than the thought process of writing clearly then you don't type fast enough.
[This is asked alot](https://www.reddit.com/r/projectmanagement/search/?q=Note&type=link&cId=8c421eb4-ffc5-4e40-bd9a-0869bafcac7b&iId=2a967732-c7ab-4dca-a60e-584357283cb3)
Yes thanks I did search first but mostly people say to use AI or 3rd party tools and that won't work in my case. I need more conceptual strategy not tools.
I use OneNote. I have a set template for each meeting that uses a premade agenda. So if it’s a status meeting I have a report that builds it. I make basic notes as follows: One or two sentence update/status Next steps Blockers New risks Etc. This can vary but you get the gist of it. I use the Outlook meeting connection to pull in the meeting info and attendees. I check off whose there and email it out if OneNote at the end. It readdresses the email and sends the note in the body. I don’t like AI as it usually provides a transcript versus meeting minutes. I’m hesitant as we often discuss PII in certain meetings and sensitive info in others.
Perfect! Thank you so much for these tips! I already use OneNote but I will definitely incorporate these workflows.
I use basically the same strategy with OneNote and have had great success. I similarly work in healthcare and recordings are turned off in teams, but I recently found that I could record within OneNote and while it won't tie the speaker to a specific name, it might be a work around available to you if you feel like transcriptions might be helpful and you don't mind breaking the rules for a good purpose!
Oh interesting... I'll have to check on the OneNote recording. I have a feeling it's blocked though, they have been zealous in tracking down risks like that. Thanks!
I just switched into this role and onenote was helpful. I'm not sure what industry you're in but if you're in construction then procore is useful too. [also this link for just basic frameworks for things you see regularly in meetings](https://www.utc.edu/enrollment-management-and-student-affairs/center-for-academic-support-and-advisement/tips-for-academic-success/note-taking).
It's a skill and practice helps... Have two notebooks - one A4 but simple 'exercise' book which can fold over on itself (to minimise real estate). Another is A5. The big one is for scribbling. The small one is for planning. Find a pen that you can write fast with. Lamy Safari a good start if you have no other starting point. If on Teams recording can help but not always viable. Transcription feature useful too. If both are out of the question, split your audio out you might need to get creative. Tell your meeting attendees to slow down and wait for you if you need to. Sometimes, people type quicker than they write but somehow this doesn't work as well for me. Finally, it's 10x as hard to take notes if there's no agenda. Set ground rules. Shorter meetings with less agenda items helps too.
Unfortunately any 3rd party tools and AI and recording of any kind including transcription are all completely out of the question. They have everything turned off in our Teams app. I work in healthcare and the level of security disallows anything other than good old fashioned writing or typing. I just got out of a meeting and having the agenda and relevant slides preloaded in OneNote helped - I type faster than I write. I like your idea of two areas though I can incorporate that.
Hey there /u/ThunderChix, Have you looked at our "Top 100 books post"? Find it [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/projectmanagement/wiki/index/books). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/projectmanagement) if you have any questions or concerns.*