Project Management 101 - Part 4 Taking Notes - an art lost on me

PM's have lot to keep up with: meetings, conference calls, actions items, etc. Maybe you should take some notes.

I’m embarrassed to say that I’m terrible at taking notes. My notes are illegible, random, scribbled on the first piece of paper I can grab: in essence, totally useless. I’m terrified at the thought of leaving my notebook behind in a conference room, should someone find out that I keep what amounts to an incoherent doodle pad. I do come up with some pretty impressive artwork if the meeting is long enough.

First, why take notes?

That’s obvious: so that you can remember what was discussed and what you or someone else was supposed to do. This is not about meeting minutes and action items; this is about your personal notes and to-do lists.

Why take notes when someone else is?

Your notes are your person record. Two weeks or a year from now, do you really think you’ll remember everything that was said in that meeting? Are the meeting minutes the same as what you heard?

Scary enough, along with emails and text messages, your notes are actually legal record. You can be required to produce them for use in a contract dispute or other legal case action. This is the testimony of your recollection of events, especially if a few years have passed.

I'm just grateful that there are no laws that require correct spelling or grammar.

Not keeping notes could also get you into trouble. As it’s a routine practice that you take notes, not being able to produce a notebook may seem a little suspicious.

So how do you take good notes? What should you write down? Great question.

Meeting minutes should just capture some of the salient point and shouldn’t be a transcript. There are just a few basics that need to be captured: who was there, decisions made, action items, etc. If the meeting is two hours long and only one decision was made that resulted in one action item, then that’s all that needs to be in the minutes.

In your personal notes, you may want to write down a bit more, like who discussed what certain topics, whether it was minute worthy or not. Also, maybe some personal lessons learned or actions items, like get with John to learn more about what his department does. Or questions to bring up at the next meeting. This should be along with the salient points from the meeting so, again, you can compare your notes to the meeting minutes.

Here are some more suggestions:

1.?????Keep a separate notebook for each project, as well as a separate book for department meetings, phones calls, and other general topics. The project notebook will make is easy to go back to the last meeting records without having to flip through pages of other random notes.

2.?????Use a spiral or hard bound notebook and not a note or legal pad. Like me, if you’re terrible at taking notes, then use a note pad but make a habit of copying the notes into the appropriate book, right after the meeting. If you wait, your notes are likely not going to be the same. Just leave out the artwork.

3.?????Obvious enough, write down the date, the time and the subject of each meeting. This will help you keep track of chronological events: “Hey, at our meeting on that Tuesday at 10, you said you’d have those plans ready for the last meeting”.

4.?????Underline or high-light action items assigned to you, or actions you personally want to take so they stand out.

5.?????Try not to doodle or scribble in the margins. This distracts from the content and focus of your notes. Do you really want your sketch of a rocket ship to be displayed as Exhibit B during your deposition?

6.?????Use a new page for each meeting or topic. If you do have to share your notes, you can readily copy the page and not have your comments on there from the previous, top-secret meeting, or the date of your next dentist appointment.

7. Keep notes of phone calls. If the call resulted in an action item, follow-up with an email.

And some more:

Take notes. Yes, actually take notes. Never go anywhere without at least your general notebook. And a pen. Someone will ask you to do something and even though you think you’ll remember to write it down so that you will remember later, you are probably likely to forget to do both.

During a meeting, don’t hesitate to ask the mediator to hold on so you can write down your notes. Or, if you didn’t understand something, ask that it be repeated. Most likely you won’t be the only one trying to keep up with taking notes; there will be more nods of appreciation than scowls of disapproval; unless you’re not paying attention.

Don’t type your notes. Even with my illegible shorthand that has evolved to mask my inability to spell, I would still rather take handwritten notes (unless I’m keeping minutes). Typing requires you to bring your computer, which is a distraction in itself; as well as the spell and grammar correction that will make you focus more on what you’re typing rather than what’s happening during the meeting.

Go back to your college habits (or not). I find that a blue, fine-point pen helps me take the most legible notes. I try to use a spiral notebook so that I can rip out the page and clean up my notes if I need to. But, more often than not, my notes are scribbled on the corner of the meeting hand-out.?

Like just about anything in Project Management, you'd think taking notes is an innate function like breathing. It takes a lot more discipline than you think.