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Last month we introduced the notion of spreading the duties and responsibilities of meeting management across lots of people. It keeps them engaged, and makes sure they're listening to what's going on. We introduced the role of the "Time Keeper," who manages the meeting's schedule.
The second role we offer is the "Journal Keeper," who captures decisions reached, decisions deferred, and the next agenda. A good Journal Keeper listens for agreements and decisions, and records what was decided. When decisions are deferred (for example, because the right people aren't present, or more data needs to be acquired), those are also captured, along with the name of the person responsible for taking action to prepare for the next meeting.
At meeting's end, the Journal Keeper has three documents:
1 | The original agenda, as amended,
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2 | Notes of decisions reached, consequent actions that need to be taken, and who's responsible, and
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3 | Notes of items deferred to a future meeting, and who's responsible for preparation.
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Within a day, the Journal Keeper should send two eMail messages to all participants and other interested parties:
| The first eMail is the original agenda with changes, decisions taken during each agenda item, actions that flow from those decisions,
and the names of people responsible for those actions.
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| Shaping
the agenda is a powerful political position.
The duty of
Journal Keeper should be passed along to someone else at the start of the
next meeting.
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| The second eMail is a draft agenda
for the next meeting. It records information about the items that were deferred, and who's
responsible for making sure that required preparation takes place before the next meeting.
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This article was originally published in the 
newsletter, August, 2002
and is available to our subscribers on our website, http://www.net-working.com.
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