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Part of What documents does a single meeting actually need to produce?
Meeting documents template: pick the one that fixes your problem
A meeting documents template for each problem: re-argued decisions, lost actions, stalled items, messy papers and drifting one-to-ones. Which to add, and why.
Start from the complaint you keep hearing, not from a blank template. Each recurring meeting complaint has one document that fixes it, and adding the wrong one first only gives people more paper to ignore.
What to take away
- Match the symptom to the documentre-argued decisions need a decision log, evaporating actions need a register.
- Add one document at a time, in the order the breakage appears.
- A pre-read ends with the question, not with the background.
- Two or three fields do most of the work in each document, so start with those.
From symptom to document
Everyone already has an agenda and minutes, covered in the meeting documents overview. The documents below are the ones that go missing, and their absence is why decisions get re-litigated and actions evaporate. The table starts from what people say, because that is how the need usually shows up.
| What you hear | The document to add | The fields that do the work |
|---|---|---|
| "Didn't we already decide this?" | Decision log | Reference, authority, supersedes |
| "Who was doing that?" | Action register | Owner, original due date, status |
| "We keep deferring it" | Pre-read | The question, the options, what we do not know |
| "The chair is lost in the papers" | Cover sheet | Action required, the question |
| "Our catch-ups lead nowhere" | One-to-one note | Since last time, agreed with owner and date |
When decisions get re-argued: the decision log
A decision log is one list pulled out of many minutes. It has one row per decision across every meeting of one body, and it answers "when did we agree this and who agreed it" without anyone opening a folder.
Decision log fields
- Referenceone sequence, never reused
- Datethe meeting date
- Decisionstated as an outcome
- Authorityconsensus, vote, or role
- Supersedesthe most valuable column
- Statuslive, superseded, or lapsed
The full log carries a reference, the date decided, the decision, the body, the authority, the effective date, what it supersedes, a status and where it is recorded. Of those, supersedes is the most valuable. Without it, an old decision keeps circulating as current. Authority records how it was decided, which is the first question asked when a decision is challenged.
Maintain the log as decisions are made, not in a catch-up sweep. A log rebuilt from a year of minutes will miss whatever the minutes were vague about, exactly the material you needed. Worked rows for different meeting types are in the meeting documents examples.
When actions evaporate: the action register
Keep the register separate from the minutes and from the decision log, because it is worked from rather than read. An action buried in minutes does not get done.
Action register fields
- Actiona finishable verb phrase
- Ownerone name, never two
- Agreed and due dates
- Revised duedate and count
- Reports tomeeting or person
- Statusnot started to dropped
Each row holds the action, an owner, the agreed date, the original and revised due dates, who it reports to, a status and a one-line note only where the status needs explaining. Word each action as something finishable: "look into pricing" cannot be finished, and "circulate a pricing recommendation" can. Name one owner, because two owners is none.
Keep the original due date next to the revised one, so an action that has slipped three times looks different from a new one. "Dropped" is a legitimate status, and using it honestly is better than carrying dead rows for a year.
When items keep being deferred: the pre-read
A pre-read goes out with the agenda for any item marked as a decision. It runs one to two pages and exists to make the decision possible in the room, not to inform people generally.
Pre-read structure
- State the question first
- Give three to six facts
- List options including do nothing
- Name one recommendation
- Record what we do not know
The question goes first, phrased so it can be answered yes or no or as a choice between named options. "Do nothing" is an option in every real decision, and leaving it out makes the paper an argument rather than a briefing.
The last section, what we do not know, is the one authors want to cut and the one that protects them. It also stops a decision being reopened a month later. Habits like these are why half of all pre-reads never reach their question, one of the patterns in meeting documents mistakes.
When a formal body meets: the cover sheet
Where papers go to a formal body, a fixed cover sheet in front of every paper lets the chair run the meeting from the covers alone. The most useful field on it is the action required: decide, discuss or note.
Cover sheet fields
- Paper numberstable, cited in minutes
- Titlea noun phrase
- Author and role
- Action requireddecide, discuss, note
- The questionblank means not ready
- Confidentialitywho may see this
Give each paper a stable number, because the minutes cite it. The other fields are the title as a noun phrase, the author and role, prior consideration, attachments by name and confidentiality. Prior consideration stops a body redoing another body's work. A blank question field means the paper is not ready, and a confidentiality field matters because papers circulate further than intended.
Where a body's meetings are open or its records are published, the rules are set externally rather than by the chair. For US federal advisory committees, regulation says that detailed minutes must be kept for each advisory committee meeting, including a closed or partially closed one.
When one-to-ones drift: the one-to-one note
The smallest meeting document is the one most often kept in nobody's head. Five short lines are enough: what was agreed last time and what happened, what was discussed, what was agreed now, what was parked, and the next date.
One-to-one note lines
- Since last timewhat was agreed
- Discussedtwo or three lines
- Agreedactions with owner and date
- Raised, unresolvedanything parked
- Nextthe date
The first line makes the series useful rather than a set of disconnected notes. Actions carry an owner even with only two people, because "you said you would" is not a record.
Keep it short enough that it gets written. A template that takes fifteen minutes to fill will be abandoned within a month.
The order to adopt them in
A single recurring team meeting needs an agenda, minutes and an action register, and nothing more until something breaks. Add the decision log the moment two people ask whether something was already decided.
Which document to add
Two people ask if something was decided -> add the decision log
Items deferred for lack of information -> add pre-reads
A formal body exists -> add cover sheets
Add pre-reads when items keep being deferred for lack of information. Add cover sheets only where a formal body exists. The same order-of-adoption question applies to a set of operational checklists, and the setup sequence is in fixing meeting documents.
Decide retention at the same time. The National Archives says that recordkeeping requirements should be outlined in procedural manuals that specify which records need to be included in recordkeeping systems, and meeting minutes retention rules cover the periods for US and Canadian records.
Common questions
Can the decision log live inside the minutes?
No, and this is the most common shortcut. The log's value is that it is one list covering years. Inside minutes it is many lists covering one meeting each, which is what you already have.
Who maintains the action register?
One named person, usually whoever takes the minutes, and they update it as items complete rather than only at meetings. An action list refreshed once a fortnight is a list people check.
Should a pre-read include everything the author knows?
No. It should include what bears on the question. Everything else goes in an appendix that nobody is expected to read, or nowhere.
Do informal meetings need any of this?
They need the agreed line. Two people leaving a conversation with different ideas of what was agreed is the failure these documents exist to prevent, and it happens most in informal meetings, not least.
