Summary of decisions: what layout for your meeting minutes?

What is a summary of decisions?

The business meeting is an effective communication tool: it gives direction to staff and opens up discussion between the facilitator and the participants. Its value, however, depends on what remains once everyone has left the room.

The summary of decisions is the shortest and most focused way of recording it. It contains the measures agreed during the meeting and does not include the discussions between participants. It can be written as a table or as short paragraphs. Also called a record of decisions, it is one of the three main forms described in our article on the definition of meeting minutes, alongside summary minutes and formal minutes.

When to choose it rather than full minutes

A summary of decisions is well suited to:

• recurring meetings (weekly team meetings, steering committees, project reviews), where readers already know the context;
• operational meetings whose purpose is to decide and assign actions;
• readers who are short on time and want to know what changes for them.

Summary minutes or formal minutes remain preferable when the reasoning behind a decision must be kept (a choice that will be challenged later, a regulatory obligation, a meeting of a governing body) or when absent participants need to understand the debate.

Steps for writing a summary of decisions

1. Define the purpose and the readers. Before the meeting, clarify its objective, the role of the members present and who will read the summary: new employees need more context than experts. The time available for writing also influences the type of report.
2. Prepare an outline. Build the structure in advance from the agenda: one section per item, with room for the decision, the owner and the due date. Taking notes directly in this outline on a computer saves time and makes the text easier to structure than on paper.
3. Take notes on decisions, not on discussions. For each item, note the decision in one sentence. If no decision was taken, write so, along with the next step. Some writers record the meeting, but turning a recording into a written summary takes longer than taking notes live. Our guide on how to take notes for a meeting report details the techniques.
4. Check each decision before closing the meeting. Reading the decisions aloud in the last minutes avoids disagreements once the summary has been sent.
5. Proofread. Check that all items are present, that the content is consistent and that there are no spelling mistakes.
6. Send it quickly. The writer should make the final document available promptly, ideally within one or two days of the meeting.

The layout of the summary

A good layout lets the reader understand the subject of the meeting at a glance from the header, then find the decisions and actions that concern them. Here are the headings to include:

• the title of the meeting and the place where it took place (or the video conference tool);
• the date, the start and end times;
• the names of those present and absent, of the organiser and of the person writing the summary;
• the agenda, with the items covered;
• for each item, a brief statement of the subject and the decision taken;
• the actions decided, each with the person responsible and a due date;
• the date of the next meeting.

For a complete template with all the sections of a meeting report and a filled-in example, see our template for the presentation of a meeting report.

Table or text: an example

The table format is the most readable for a summary of decisions. Here is a fictitious example for a monthly project review:

The text format works for meetings with few items: one short paragraph per item, starting with the decision. Whatever the format, each action must have a name and a date. Without them, the decision is unlikely to be implemented.

Mistakes that make a summary unusable

• Mixing decisions and discussions. The reader can no longer tell what was decided and what was only discussed.
• Vague wording. "Look into the subject" is not a decision. "Compare the two offers and present a recommendation" is.
• Actions with no owner or due date. They tend to be forgotten until the next meeting.
• Sending it too late. A week after the meeting, participants have already moved on, and the summary is no longer read.
• No follow-up. The summary of decisions is the starting point of an action plan. The decisions of the previous meeting should be reviewed at the start of the next one, as in our executive committee minutes example.

To go further on the different forms of minutes and how to write them, see our meeting minutes page.