How to take minutes of a meeting: example of a CODIR

What are the minutes of a CODIR for?

The CODIR (from the French comité de direction) is the executive or management committee: it brings together, at regular intervals, the company's main executives, such as the CEO and the heads of finance, sales, operations, human resources and IT. It arbitrates strategic subjects and priorities, in line with the organisation's mission and objectives.

Its minutes have three functions:

• Keeping a record of decisions and of the information that led to them, so that the same debates are not reopened.
• Committing each member: at the end of the meeting, every participant must know precisely what result is expected, from whom and by when.
• Informing those who were not there: absent members, and the managers who will have to apply the decisions in their teams.

The minutes of an executive committee are therefore not a verbatim record. They are above all a record of decisions and commitments. For the basics common to all types of meetings, see our definition of meeting minutes.

What the minutes must contain

A reader who was not present must find, without effort:

• the date, the place or format (in person, video call) and the purpose of the meeting;
• the list of participants with their function, and the list of absentees;
• the name of the minute taker;
• for each agenda item: the facts and figures presented, the positions expressed if they explain the decision, then the decision itself;
• the list of actions: what, who, by when;
• the items postponed and the date of the next meeting;
• the distribution list and the level of confidentiality.

Complete example of CODIR minutes

The example below is fictitious. It shows the expected structure and level of detail. Adapt the headings to your company.

Header

1. Review of actions from the previous meeting

Of 9 open actions, 6 are completed, 2 are in progress and on schedule, 1 is late (update of the price list, delayed while waiting for supplier costs).

Decision: new deadline set for 20 October for the price list.

2. Quarterly results

Revenue is in line with budget. The margin is slightly down because of higher transport costs. The CFO presents two options: renegotiate transport contracts or pass part of the increase on to prices.

Decision: priority to renegotiating the contracts. Passing the increase on to prices will be reconsidered at the next meeting if the renegotiation is not enough.

3. New sales management tool

The deputy CIO presents the two solutions shortlisted after the call for tenders. The committee asks for a full costing, including training and data migration, before choosing.

Decision: choice postponed to the November meeting, based on the full costing.

4. HR update (confidential)

Item reserved for CODIR members, recorded in an appendix with restricted distribution.

Actions decided

Next meeting: Tuesday 3 November, 9 am. Items already scheduled: choice of the sales management tool, outcome of the transport renegotiation.

For other types of meetings, our meeting report template offers a general layout to copy.

How to take the minutes in 6 steps

1. Prepare the outline before the meeting. Use the agenda and the list of actions from the previous meeting: the minutes are already half structured. Fill in the date, participants and agenda in advance.
2. Note decisions as they are made. During the meeting, focus on what is decided, by whom and by when, rather than on the detail of the discussion. Our article on how to take notes for a meeting report gives practical techniques.
3. Have decisions confirmed in the meeting. At the end of each item, restate the decision aloud. This avoids diverging interpretations.
4. Write concisely. One or two pages. Detailed data goes in an appendix, sensitive subjects in an appendix with restricted distribution.
5. Send the minutes within 24 hours. The later they arrive, the less they are read and the later the actions start.
6. Open the next meeting with a review of actions. This is what gives weight to the minutes: everyone knows their commitments will be reviewed.

For more on the writing itself, see our 5 tips for writing good meeting minutes.

Mistakes that make minutes useless

• Transcribing the debates instead of the decisions. The reader has to search for what was decided.
• Actions without a single owner. "Sales and operations" is not an owner.
• Vague deadlines. "As soon as possible" or "shortly" make any follow-up impossible.
• Late distribution. Minutes sent a week after the meeting arrive when the actions should already have started.
• No follow-up between meetings. If nobody looks at progress before the next meeting, delays are discovered too late.

From minutes to follow-up of decisions

The minutes are only one step. Their value is measured at the next meeting: how many actions were completed, and on time? To organise this follow-up over time, our example of an action plan to follow up your SteerCo meetings shows how to keep the list of actions from one meeting to the next.

With a word processor, this follow-up remains manual: actions have to be copied from one set of minutes to the next, each owner has to be chased and progress has to be consolidated. A meeting minutes tool linked to the action plan removes this re-entry: actions decided in the meeting are created directly, with their owner and deadline, and their progress is visible at the next meeting.