How To Summarise A Business Meeting Into The Minutes Of Meeting

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Meeting Summarising Stages

Every meeting summary should go through two summarising stages at the following times:

1. During The Meeting: Whilst you are in the meeting… jot down quick, summarised meeting notes of everything said
2. After The Meeting: Then, after the meeting… re-summarise and re-organise them again, into the final summary you’ll use for the Minutes of Meeting.

The reason for doing it twice is because most people have neither the time nor the ability to properly focus on effective summarising during the meeting, as besides taking down hasty notes, you are also:

1. Processing what is being said; and
2. Are responding to questions or are providing input, as required.

All most people are able to do is to mechanically jot / take down basic notes to re-work and re-summarise when they are better able to focus, after the meeting. Now, as you become more experienced, you will find that your meeting notes require minimal reworking for the Minutes of Meeting afterwards. But, even then it is vital to double and triple check to make sure that you did not miss anything by dedicating sufficient time to it after the meeting.

Important to Business English Success

It is important for anyone learning Business English to practice summarising, as that practice will enhance your understanding and comprehension. Meeting attendees often speak quickly and you cannot pause the meeting and rewind to re-listen to what was said. There are no re-do’s / re-takes / rewinds in a live business meeting. If you cannot keep up, you will not only not be able to provide effective input during the session but you will also not be able to create successful summaries or Minutes of Meeting, so practicing will actually help you to succeed in your career. That is, besides the obvious business advantages to having accurate, effective and successful meeting summaries.

AI not quite there yet

One may argue that there are AI apps that will help you to convert your meeting recordings into text and then summarise that text, which is valid (their potential risk to your IP and hackable security issues aside). However, they are not quite there yet…in that they are not 100% accurate and they don’t have the background knowledge / context to understand what the people in your meeting would actually need to have in their Minutes of Meeting.

And besides that… it is still very important to practice this skill because it will enhance and speed up your comprehension in any live business situation, making you more effective across the board.

The above video will show you how to effectively summarise a business meeting into the Minutes of Meeting and it includes:

1. The benefits to summarising (What it offers)
2. What types of things should be included in a meeting summary
3. 5 Practice listening comprehension and summarising exercises, with best practice answers to compare your answers to
4. Helpful Tips & Tricks

Want to practice this? Go to our video series and get the opportunity to practice summarising 15 more business meeting conversations for yourself, to be even more prepared for real-world business situations, by clicking this link

Links to other related content lists:

1. Business Emails
2. Business Meetings
3. Business Presentations
4. Business English Tests
5. Business Lessons Learned
6. Videos

Want to see more? View our other Business English articles by clicking on this link

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• Category: Business English, Emails, Meeting, Meeting, Presentations, Videos
• Tag: Business education, Business English, Business English study, Business focus, Business Teaching, Business training, English Instruction, English teaching, English Training, English Tutoring

Posted by optimumbusines

Lyn has worked in various business areas of large, internationally-recognised, multinational telecommunication corporate organisations since 2004, gaining significant expertise in the business language of each. Her role regularly combined the functions of internal communications, training and change management on large projects and other strategic initiatives. She also has specific experience in: – Creating HR policies and procedures – Talent recruitment lead creation procedures – Process creation, optimisation and re-engineering in AP, sourcing and HR – Migrating and managing SOX and EWC compliance, and implementations – Global and regional Shared Service Centre management and implementations – Bid Management – EcoMetric assessment training and certification procedures – Internship creation and management – Full SAP, IFRS15, Concur and S4 Hana implementations QUALIFICATIONS She has a four-year Higher Diploma in Education from the University of Natal, in secondary (high school) second language teaching. She also has a Bachelor of Arts degree, from the University of South Africa (UNISA), majoring in Psychology. She is a certified EcoMetrist and has an Advanced 120 Hour TEFL certificate. Her combination of international business experience provides practical, professional know-how, combined with excellent qualifications, ensures an effective all-round, expert approach to training.

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