Meeting Minutes Template Excel and Word : Write Effective and Simple Minutes

• People forget what they say and that is the most important reason why minutes are needed.
• An important followup document with all the details about the meeting including agenda, where the meeting was conducted and who attended the meeting.
• A mechanism of sharing information about the meeting with people who did not attend the meeting. 
• Having a standard document will ensure all the meetings are documented in the same fashion.
• Document key points that were discussed in the meeting. After publishing the minutes if every body accepts the minutes then there will be no conflicts.
• It is important to capture what everyone's view is about a given topic.
• Document action items which help in following up on tasks with a due date.
• Document decisions made in the meeting and also who made the decision.
• Can be used as a starting point for new meetings.

1. Meeting chair is the person who is the key decision maker. Meeting title is a short description about the meeting.
2. The first section has details which are more general in nature. Most of the fields are self explanatory. 
3. Attendees is a list of the people who attended the meeting and apologies is used to document people who did no attend.

Agenda, Summary and Conclusion

1. The Agenda should contain the key discussion points for the meeting.
2. It should be a set of bullet points describing what are the different topics that were planned to be discussed. 
3. The agenda should be set before the meeting is organized so you can use the agenda that you sent when you organized the meeting.
4. The Summary of the discussion should contain a clear list of points which were discussed with specific names so that it ia clear who said what.
5. Summary of the discussion is the key section as most of what was discussed will be captured in the section.So, you should add as much details as you can.
6. The meeting conclusion should contain a quick summary on what was the conclusion of the meeting.  If two different topics were discussed then you can have bullet points to discuss both the topics.

Meeting Conclusion

1. The action items section is also one of the key sections as it captures what tasks or actions are pending. 
2. Assigning action items is very effective as each action item will have a owner and deadline.
3. Every Action will have a Serial Number - a counter, Action Item - what is the task,  Owner - who is responsible for the task, Due Date - the deadline for the task.
4. It is important to keep the action items rolling which means the action items are published till they are closed. Even after closing I would suggest keeping the closed action item in the document with closed status for at least one meeting so that people will know when something is closed.

Decision Register

1. Like the action items register decision register captures decisions made in a meeting.
2. Each decision contains a Serial Number - a counter, Decision -  a description about the decision made, Decision By - who made the decision, Date - the date on which the decision was made.
3. The decision register should also be rolling and should be kept in the minutes as long as possible as people need to know what decisions were made and by whom.

• Keep taking notes in the meeting however small the detail is even if you are the organizer. It is easy to forget.
• Always document the minutes immediately after the meeting so that you do not forget what was discussed. Documenting when it is fresh in your mind is very easy.
• Whenever starting a new meeting always review the minutes from the previous meeting.


• Whenever putting something controversial or recording a decision make sure you check with person who will the owner.
• Documenting minutes is very crucial in project management. Without proper documentation a project manager will always struggle to hold people accountable for what was said and what was done.