As a former civil servant I've been lumbered with the meeting secretary role on countless occasions. The following thoughts may-or-may-not help others.
1. Train your chairperson.
The meeting chair is usually an important person. Everyone will be there to influence that person's thoughts - as well as fight their own corner against professional and personal enemies. The secretary is usually someone a lot further down the pecking order. Which means training your chairperson is gonna be a fraught affair. However, if you can demonstrate to your chair that listening to your advice will lead to happier meetings then they may be happier to learn. I call this the "Dark Art of upwards management".
The keys to a successful meeting - they vary. But a pretty fundamental key is "what is this meeting about", alongside "what does the chair want to get out of this meeting". Work these out (by any means possible), then ask the chair if your assumptions are right before the meeting starts. Most chairpeople will (in my experience) indulge your questions in a patronising sort of way the first few times, especially if you can follow up on likely arguments that may block successful outcomes. After a while intelligent chairs will be asking you for a summary of the meeting before it starts. Chairs do not like to have their time wasted. Be the person who helps the chair save their time.
2. Take notes during the meeting.
Never rely on memory recall after the meeting! Your memory will lie to you, especially about the boring bits which turn out to be really important for some of the participants. And use oldskool pen and paper: typing is essentially one dimensional, whereas a pad of paper has three dimensions and pens can draw arrows, bubbles, and (during the boring bits) relevant doodles as well as record word/idea summaries. It should be enough to capture key phrases (which will trigger memories later) - if you need a full record of everything said during the meeting, use a voice recording device.
Also, advice for face-blind folks like me. Draw a map of where everybody is sitting at the very start of the meeting, and insist that everyone introduces themselves (for the record) before the bickering starts. Then you can give people numbers or pithy descriptions ("bluedress", "uglytache") to help capture who said what.
Nowadays online meetings can be recorded. Personally I think it makes the whole thing a lot less fun. Someone still has to summarise the meeting for the files, or action points, etc.
3. Write up a first draft of the meeting summary straight after the meeting.
Do not put this job off! Tackle it while the anger at being forced to do the work is still hot in your veins. It does not have to be perfect; it just needs to be in the required format. Fuller notes is best - it's always easier to cut words later than to add them. Pull action points from the notes into a separate document. The action points are the only thing anyone's interested in. But your chair will thank you later if you have a fuller record: being able to say during a subsequent meeting that something has already been decided - and being able to point to the record of that - will save your chairperson the pain of deja-vu ... and give them a reason to like you even more than they already did.
Final thoughts ... my ideal meeting lasts no more than ten minutes. If I need to meet someone (eg: client) on a regular basis I will do as much work beforehand as needed to make the meeting as speedy and pleasant for everyone attending. Know what every meeting is for; what I want to get out of the meeting. Know what others want to get out of the meeting before they know themselves. If you know someone will attend the meeting because they really like making everyone listen to their (never-ending!) voice ... lose their invite. If the matter of a meeting creeps way beyond its original scope, or you can see that you have nothing further to contribute, stand up and walk out.
1. Train your chairperson.
The meeting chair is usually an important person. Everyone will be there to influence that person's thoughts - as well as fight their own corner against professional and personal enemies. The secretary is usually someone a lot further down the pecking order. Which means training your chairperson is gonna be a fraught affair. However, if you can demonstrate to your chair that listening to your advice will lead to happier meetings then they may be happier to learn. I call this the "Dark Art of upwards management".
The keys to a successful meeting - they vary. But a pretty fundamental key is "what is this meeting about", alongside "what does the chair want to get out of this meeting". Work these out (by any means possible), then ask the chair if your assumptions are right before the meeting starts. Most chairpeople will (in my experience) indulge your questions in a patronising sort of way the first few times, especially if you can follow up on likely arguments that may block successful outcomes. After a while intelligent chairs will be asking you for a summary of the meeting before it starts. Chairs do not like to have their time wasted. Be the person who helps the chair save their time.
2. Take notes during the meeting.
Never rely on memory recall after the meeting! Your memory will lie to you, especially about the boring bits which turn out to be really important for some of the participants. And use oldskool pen and paper: typing is essentially one dimensional, whereas a pad of paper has three dimensions and pens can draw arrows, bubbles, and (during the boring bits) relevant doodles as well as record word/idea summaries. It should be enough to capture key phrases (which will trigger memories later) - if you need a full record of everything said during the meeting, use a voice recording device.
Also, advice for face-blind folks like me. Draw a map of where everybody is sitting at the very start of the meeting, and insist that everyone introduces themselves (for the record) before the bickering starts. Then you can give people numbers or pithy descriptions ("bluedress", "uglytache") to help capture who said what.
Nowadays online meetings can be recorded. Personally I think it makes the whole thing a lot less fun. Someone still has to summarise the meeting for the files, or action points, etc.
3. Write up a first draft of the meeting summary straight after the meeting.
Do not put this job off! Tackle it while the anger at being forced to do the work is still hot in your veins. It does not have to be perfect; it just needs to be in the required format. Fuller notes is best - it's always easier to cut words later than to add them. Pull action points from the notes into a separate document. The action points are the only thing anyone's interested in. But your chair will thank you later if you have a fuller record: being able to say during a subsequent meeting that something has already been decided - and being able to point to the record of that - will save your chairperson the pain of deja-vu ... and give them a reason to like you even more than they already did.
Final thoughts ... my ideal meeting lasts no more than ten minutes. If I need to meet someone (eg: client) on a regular basis I will do as much work beforehand as needed to make the meeting as speedy and pleasant for everyone attending. Know what every meeting is for; what I want to get out of the meeting. Know what others want to get out of the meeting before they know themselves. If you know someone will attend the meeting because they really like making everyone listen to their (never-ending!) voice ... lose their invite. If the matter of a meeting creeps way beyond its original scope, or you can see that you have nothing further to contribute, stand up and walk out.