In my previous role as a technical account manager with 18 accounts in 4 countries and 35 contacts across each I had to adopt a note-taking system to survive recurring meetings.
The System
- Each recurring meeting had a single doc (OneNote, GoogleDoc, Coda… pick your flavor).
- The doc gets updated for each occurrence e.g. weekly
- Regular attendees get penned in at the top of the file.
- The structure should be one that you can easily populate, annotate and review
Notetaking
- Update the document for each occurrence. e.g., week.
- Review the previous meeting to refresh your memory and verify completed or pending actions.
- Quickly note if regular attendees are missing or if you have special attendees
Basic Format
- Meeting
- Date
- Attendees
- Key actions and conclusions from the previous meeting
- Status on key actions: achieved or missed
- Notes and Decisions
- Next steps and action items
Do what works best for you and your stakeholders.