Re: Format of meeting minutes

On Mar 18, 2004, at 09:11, Lofton Henderson wrote:
> But in reality:  the minutes vary widely in quality, completeness, and 
> accuracy; and, I suspect QAWG-ers sometimes don't look at 'em again 
> after the meeting, neither draft nor final versions.  (Situation 
> normal -- too much to do, too little time.)

Agreed. I will, as you suggest, draft a minutes template with this 
format, and maybe the group can use it for a while and decide if the 
additional effort for one person is worth the benefit (and time saved, 
I think) for others?

> A caveat.  The synopsis/abstract that summarizes each discussion topic:
> 1.) introduces a responsibility that the minute taker interpret and 
> summarize the raw discussion.

Unless the minute taker is able to transcript exactly and completely 
every work the participants say (which I, at least, am not), I don't 
see summarizing the discussion as much different from interpreting 
everyone lengthy sentence into a short one. I would even dare say that 
it's easier to summarize the whole discussion after it happened than to 
summarize what someone just said. YMMV.

> 2.) implies that all of us ought to check the draft minutes, more 
> perhaps than is happening now.

...and is that a bad thing? :)

-- 
olivier