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Enhance Meeting Note-Taking Efficiency with Our Latest Template

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You may have a program steering committee or an evaluation advisory committee meeting coming up and want to ensure you can track the discussion and any action items. These strategic and planning-type meetings are notorious for complexity, and it may be hard to document the many issues discussed, decisions being made, and action items that need to be followed through. The challenge is, how do we keep track of it all?

Note-taking is just one piece of this puzzle which can include calendars, Gantt charts, and project or task management software like Asana or Microsoft Planner. Here is a template I use to help track notes in project meetings.


Why a note-taking template?

This template helps you to:

  • Document what is important during the meeting;

  • Record key details you need to refer back to or follow up on;

  • Document decisions, challenges, and action items;

  • Increase team accountability by tracking who is responsible for follow-up on action items;

  • Efficiently update other project management tools.


Who’s it for?

This template is for anyone who needs to track updates and action items in project meetings!


What’s included?

The Meeting Notes Template in Microsoft Word is a tool to use when needing to keep track of challenges, changes, and action items discussed in a project meeting. The template captures who is in attendance, changes to the project, what challenges may affect the project, and who is responsible for action items.


How do I use this template?

In preparation for a meeting, I pre-populate the agenda items for the meeting into the Topic column. If any agenda items get added, I add a new row, or if I'm using a printed copy of the template, I write on the back or in a notebook to add these later.

Once completed, it can act as a useful tool to help drive the project forward by clearly listing the action items. Action items can be added to whatever project management or to-do list tracking system you prefer.


Learn more: related articles and links

You can learn more about project management in evaluation through the following links:

Project Management for Evaluation

How to Present Your Evaluation Timelines: 4 Simple Ideas