18+ Sample Management Meeting Minutes

What is a Management Meeting?

By definition, a Management Meeting (which can be also called Staff Meeting) is a type of meeting where the management team of a certain business, organization, or company will gather around and discuss every possible area that they need in order to improve the way the things are run. They will also discuss the overall progress that the company has made in comparison with the objectives and the plans that they have set. The people involved in the management meeting will talk about their company’s key performance indicators (KPI), updates on the company’s priorities, their customer feedback, and also share their own focus for the workweek. These kinds of meetings are usually the most challenging ones to organize.

What is Management Meeting Minutes?

Simply put, Management Meeting Minutes is considered to be a legal document that contains the meeting agenda, the date and time of the meeting, the basic information of the company or business, and most importantly, it also contains the decisions that were taken throughout the meeting’s duration and the actions that were made regarding on tackling the problems and any ideas on improving the way things are run within the said company. The minutes of this meeting (or any kind of meeting) is to be taken down by the secretary or the meeting’s designated scribe or note taker.

Ways on making a Management Meeting Effective

Meetings can be considered boring and usually get a bad reputation. Most of the time, participants attend the meeting with dread in the back of their minds. They are also usually not ecstatic about the thought of having to attend one. This is due to the fact that they cannot see the benefit of having one and getting invited to a meeting usually means to them that something has gone astray in relation to the goals being set by the company and attendees are not looking forward to engaging in what could be hours and hours of possible heated discussion. Fortunately, making a management meeting effective and not time-wasting is not too difficult to achieve, but would still require a good amount of skill in order to pull it off.

Preparation: Adequate preparation time paired with the proper preparation process can ensure that nothing is wasted in a meeting, let alone a management meeting. The agenda you create while preparing for the meeting should have every key point that you need to emphasize during the meeting.Delegation: During the meeting, it is essential that all key points must be discussed and the participants in the meeting get involved and have their voices heard. A way of doing this is to discuss the agenda with the participants so they can stay engaged throughout the meeting.Action Plan: As the management meeting is adjourned, an ending summary needs to be provided to confirm what everyone should be doing after the meeting’s conclusion. In other terms, creating an effective action plan lets the attendees know what steps should be taken next.Keeping focus: This is essential because staying focused enables the presenter of the management meeting to address every important point. When a discussion point is finished, questions may be asked before everyone moves on to the next topic.Engagement: Everyone who is attending or participating in a meeting, especially a management meeting, should be able to stay focused and entertained. This ensures that everyone in the meeting has concrete input which can lead to greater results and more efficient running of the said company or organization.Planning ahead: Forward-thinking is also important in making a management meeting effective. An example of this would be by scheduling the next planned meeting date at the end or even during the current meeting session. This is to ensure that any scheduling conflict that a participant may have is resolved.

What are the Functions of a Meeting?

Some matters can be solved with a simple face-to-face discussion while some can be discussed and resolved via e-mail or modern communications devices alone. But a meeting will still triumph over these things. However, just because you can call a meeting, doesn’t mean you should because you can end up wasting everyone’s precious time. Here are the functions of a meeting and why it trumps over any memo or e-mail:

A meeting defines the team or the unit. This is because everyone present and involved in the meeting are able to look around themselves and perceive the collectiveness that each individual creates, whether it is the scribe, the meeting leader, or the CEO. Everyone present in the meeting defines a team.A meeting serves as a place wherein everyone in the group revises and updates what it currently knows as a group. It creates a pool where it has shared knowledge and experience. This not only helps the members do their jobs more intelligently, but it also increases the speed and efficiency of all kinds of communications between them.Being in a meeting will help an individual understand the collective aim of the group and the way in which his own and everyone else’s work can have a significant contribution towards success.A meeting creates a commitment to the decisions it creates and the objectives it pursues. The decision-making authority of a meeting is very important to the long-term policies and procedures of the company.In a management meeting, a meeting serves as the only occasion where the team or a group actually works as a whole, and it serves as the only time where the supervisor or manager serves as the leader of the team.

What are the Different Categories of Meetings?

Every meeting, whether it is a faculty meeting or a business meeting, can be divided into three different categories. These categories are the following (along with brief explanations):

Daily Meeting: This category of meeting is wherein the people involved usually work together on the same project and share a common objective. The decisions made and actions taken in this meeting are usually informally agreed upon.Weekly Meeting: This category of meeting is wherein the members involved are working on different kinds of projects but parallel ones. As the projects are being created, a sense of competitiveness will begin to develop and it is usually the manager or the supervisor who will have the final word on the project that is preferred.Occasional Meeting: Also known as irregular meeting, this category of meeting is composed of participants whose normal work description does not have any kind of contact with the others and whose work does not bear any significant relationship with the others’ work.

How to Prepare an Effective Management Meeting Minutes

When it comes to preparing an effective minutes of the meeting, certain steps or methods can be used as a guide to ensure that whatever is written is accurate and factual. Here are the steps:

Step 1. Identify what to write.

Various companies and organizations have different methods of taking down minutes at their management meeting. So it is important for the secretary or the assigned notetaker to know what to write and what not to write. The focus should be directed to what the participants or attendants of the management meeting are discussing, and the secretary should be able to differentiate on what to take down (ex. names of the attendees, venue of the meeting, decisions made, additions to the agenda, etc.) and what not to take down (ex. confidential matters, personal problems, etc.)

Step 2. Learn when to listen and listen properly.

It is also important to know when should the secretary simply listen to the person that is presenting in front. Once he/she is confident to know what to write down in the minutes, the best option is to simply listen and concentrate on what topic the speaker is discussing. The best minute takers are usually really good listeners, too.

Step 3. Write the notes down objectively.

As the secretary or the notetaker begins to take down meeting notes for the minutes of the management meeting, it is important to know that this should be done in an objective manner. Personal takes or opinions regarding the topic being presented should be completely left out of the notes, or if possible, written on a completely different page, away from the main notes for personal purposes. The final document that is being produced should also be written empty of bias. Since the final document has legal liability, it is also important to keep the information written on the management meeting minutes as basic as possible to avoid placing the business or the entire company into unnecessary legal trouble.

Step 4. Finalize and distribute.

Once the note-taking process is finished and the meeting is adjourned, then the next step is getting the notes transferred or encoded into a formal, essential document while everything is still fresh in the mind. After, the secretary or the notetaker should verify that everything that is encoded in the final management meeting minutes document is factual and matches with what was discussed during the management meeting proper. When everything is finalized, the formal minutes document should also be distributed to the executive department of the company or the organization, and to anyone with approval to receive the minutes of the meeting.

FAQs

What is a management team?

A management team is described as the collection of top managers who have the responsibility of setting the strategy and running the overall operations of a company or an organization with the help of the top leader. A management team is also a team whose results are magnified by a significant increase in teamwork and cooperation covering all the different functions of the company or the organization.

What is the purpose of a management team?

The purpose of a management team is to efficiently and successfully operate the company that it is managing as well as develop a proper strategy for the company or the organization’s future. A management team also ensures the proper governance model of the company. In order to execute this properly, they can resort to bureaucratic or transactional approaches. They also combine all the discussed efforts and plans of all the very critical action plans and execute them into an efficient and well-timed strategy. Lastly, a management team also has to monitor external factors and should be able to react appropriately in order to safeguard the organization or the company’s interests for the foreseeable times.

What is a meeting quorum?

A meeting quorum talks about the number of individuals who need to be present at a meeting (especially in this case, which is a management meeting) in order to properly conduct the business of the meeting, especially if it involves decision making via a number of votes. For the board members, a quorum is defined as the majority of the members of the board. It can be as simple as reaching a 51% majority of individuals who were invited to a meeting or discussion.

How frequently does the management team hold a meeting?

It totally depends on the situation, the agenda, and the requirements of the management team that will conduct the meeting. For management teams that are spread internationally, a monthly meeting is preferred and is usually done virtually via online communication software. There are also weekly management meetings which are designed for the usual status updates and development sharing. Then. there are also quarterly reviews wherein a specific area or agenda is focused in the discussion and is usually only attended by part of a management team.

Can someone make mistakes while writing the minutes of a management meeting?

Since minutes taking can be a difficult job, mistakes are unavoidable. These can include: failing to document the number of attendees in the meeting, overlooking mistakes in the past minutes of the meeting, thus resulting in delays in approving the new one, erratic writing, including details that are too sensitive and can result in damaging the administration’s reputation, and even failing to get the formal minutes document signed. It is important that the note taker is well prepared and attentive during the meeting to ensure that the minutes that are written are factual.

A productive and effective management meeting should lay down the foundation for the success in the present and the future of the business being managed by the company or the organization. It should also lay out the decisions and actions to be taken in order to properly run and oversee the company’s operations side. The management meetings that are held will build a proper culture between the members of a management team in which all their ideas can be shared and considered.

An effective management meeting minutes document should always reflect the decisions of the organization or company and its respective management team regarding the concerns raised during the said meeting. One should not worry about finding it too difficult in the early days, because as time goes on and experience in writing meeting minutes builds up, it only gets easier. Should you need any help in creating one, don’t hesitate to look at the examples provided above, and use this article as your guide.