Minutes provide a summary of what was discussed at a meeting, what actions were agreed, who will action any issues and by when. They also contain a list of those present at the meeting and apologies for absence.

Why do you need meeting minutes?

Minutes act as an aid memoir for those who attended the meeting and are also a useful for summary for anyone who was unable to attend. Everyone attending should 'sign off on' the minutes to confirm what is recorded is reliable, and this prevents any later arguments regarding what actions were agreed.

For regular meetings e.g. project meetings for an ongoing project, it is good practice to check through the previous minutes at the beginning of a meeting and note whether the actions mentioned have been taken. This is often the first thing on the agenda.

What does the minute taker do?

The person taking minutes will make notes of what transpires in the meeting, write them up (sometimes in a specific format agreed in advance), distribute them to all who attended for sign off, then distribute a final copy to all who attended and anyone who sent apologies. This person will probably also be responsible for keeping copies of minutes on a file for future reference.

Sometimes a full recording of who said what is required. On other occasions minutes may consist only of a brief note of what was discussed and what actions were agreed.

Importantly minutes should be issued as soon after the meeting takes place as possible, although for detailed minutes the writing up might take as long as the meeting, or longer. (This won't be the case if the minutes are discussion and action points only.)

Who should the minute taker be?

The person taking minutes will ideally have some knowledge of the subject of the meeting but should not be the chair of the meeting. It is just not possible to satisfactorily chair a meeting and take minutes.

Ideally the minute taker will not be a participant in the meeting at all; their role will be simply to take minutes.

Advantages of an outsourced minute taker

An outsourced minute taker could be a virtual assistant or a secretarial service. While a virtual assistant may work closely with a company s/he will not be a part of it but an entirely separate entity. A secretarial service is similar but is unlikely to have even a close relationship with the company. This can be an advantage if the content of the meeting is likely to be contentious or if the chair is concerned about bias.

In a small company an outsourced minute taker also allows all the meeting attendees to concentrate on participating in the meeting, discussing and putting forward suggestions. If a team member is taking minutes they will be fully occupied with this task and unable to give their full input.

Using an outsourced minute taker

Before the meeting

Many virtual assistance and secretarial services will include a confidentiality clause within the contract they will ask you to sign to work with them. If they do not you might want to consider asking the minute taker to sign a confidentiality agreement.

The minute taker should ideally be issued with an attendance list in advance. If the members of the meeting are going to be reporting on various projects or tasks then ideally the minuter should be issued with a list of topics that each will be reporting on. This may be included in the agenda but alternatively an agenda might simply say. '5. Each team member to report on their projects'. If this is the case then additional information should be given.

An outsourced meeting minuter will probably charge you for the time spent at the meeting and the time spent writing up the minutes .You can reduce the time spent to write up by briefing the minute taker properly in advance. Make sure they have a basic knowledge of the purpose of the meeting, a copy of the agenda, and if there are any jargon or key words that are likely to come up, provide a list of these in advance.

If the minute taker does not know the participants then each should have a large-format card placed on the table in front of them.

Ensure that you both know what you will do after the meeting: will you be meeting up to discuss the minutes; who will distribute the minutes; who will keep records of the minutes?

During the meeting

It will save a lot of time if the meeting is effectively chaired. This requires the chair to ensure that the participants keep to the agenda points, and that they don't all speak at once. This makes note taking easier and the notes are in agenda order, thus saving writing up time.

At the end of the meeting the chair should ask the minute taker if there are any points that require clarification before the meeting is closed. This gives the minuet taker the opportunity to ask specific members of the meeting to clarify certain points on the spot.

After the meeting

Prior to issuing the minutes the chair should carefully check through them to ensure accuracy and completeness. If at all possible the chair and the minute taker should go through the written up minutes together for this purpose.

Confirm whether you want the minute taker to distribute the minutes to participants or whether that will be done by an internal person.