Meeting Minutes Template

About this template

When to use it

Minutes to circulate the same day as the meeting. The small label above the title reads “project management” — change it first. The body has seven blocks: ① meeting details, ② attendees, ③ agenda, ④ discussion, ⑤ decisions, ⑥ action items, ⑦ next meeting, then signature cells for the secretary, chair and department head plus a distribution line. Because agenda and decisions are recorded separately, it suits minutes that go for approval rather than free-form notes.

Filling order

1. ① Six rows — title, date and time, venue, chair, secretary, document number. The sample reads 12 March 2026, 14:00–15:30 (90 minutes), meeting room A with an online option, MIN-2026-014.
2. ② The attendee table has five columns and ships with one chair, three attendees and one secretary plus two blank rows. Use the footnote for absentees and how they get the minutes.
3. ③ Agenda: number, item, presenter, minutes allotted, and type (report or decision). The six sample rows are 15, 20, 15, 15, 10 and 15 minutes — 90 in total, matching the duration in ①. Change one and change the other.
4. ④ The discussion section only contains blocks for agenda items 1 to 3. If you list six items, copy a block for each of the rest. Each block is a grey summary line, three “key points” bullets, and a dissent line.
5. ⑤ Decisions: number, decision, basis, vote, effective date. The sample repeats agenda titles and prompt text, so rewrite each as a single resolution sentence.
6. ⑥ Four of the seven action rows are filled, with due dates a week apart (19 Mar, 26 Mar, 2 Apr, 9 Apr). Name an individual, never a team, and tick in progress or done.
7. ⑦ Next meeting has a regular and an ad-hoc row; replace the rule of thumb with a real date.

Examples

• ③ — 2 / “approve Q3 hiring plan” / “Park Jihun, HR” / 20 min / decision.
• ④ key points — “2 of the 4 hires are replacements”, “funded within existing payroll”, “advert posted the week after approval”.
• ⑤ — “Q3 hiring of four approved as proposed” / “within payroll budget” / unanimous / effective 2026-03-12.
• ⑥ — “finalise job advert” / Park Jihun / 2026-03-19 / in progress.

Keeping the record straight

Nothing calculates. The agenda minutes, the attendee count and the number of decisions are all reconciled by hand. If the number of agenda items, discussion blocks and decisions disagree, a reader cannot tell which item ended without a conclusion. Record deferred items in ⑤ as “deferred” with a date to return. Do not leave the “no objections” line untouched either — if there was dissent, name the speaker and the point, or the same argument comes back next month.

Common mistakes

• Circulating with the sample meeting title and document number still in place.
• Putting a team rather than a person in ⑥, so nobody can be asked when the date passes.
• Transcribing speech verbatim in ④ instead of the key points and the conclusion.
• Deleting the distribution line and sending only to attendees, so absentees never see the decisions.