Meeting Minutes in Project Management: Example and Template

Free templates: meeting minutes template to copy, Word template and Merlin Project mind map.

What Are Meeting Minutes?

Meeting minutes are the written record of a meeting with header data, decisions, action items and dates. The abbreviation MoM stands for minutes of meeting.

Minutes do not capture every word. They record the key points briefly and precisely and answer three questions:

• What was discussed and decided?
• What happens next?
• Who completes which task by when?

Meeting minutes differ from meeting notes in their audience. You write notes for yourself; minutes go to all attendees and stakeholders and serve as the shared basis for further work.

What Is the Purpose of Meeting Minutes?

Meeting minutes make decisions and responsibilities traceable, including for everyone who was absent. In a project they do four jobs:

• They summarize. After a 75-minute meeting nobody remembers everything. The minutes do.
• They inform absentees. Whoever was missing reads up instead of hearing results second-hand.
• They create clarity. If people later disagree about who promised what or why a decision was made, the minutes settle it.
• They secure actions and deadlines. The action item list shows everyone what to deliver by when.

Minutes are a tool of communication management in projects: they record what the communication plan schedules as meetings.

What Types of Meeting Minutes Are There?

There are four common types: action minutes, discussion minutes, verbatim minutes and memory minutes. They differ in how much of the discussion they record.

In projects, action minutes are usually enough. Choose discussion minutes when people must be able to trace later why a decision was made.

What Should Meeting Minutes Include?

Meeting minutes consist of header data, the agenda items with their outcome, an action item list and the next meeting date. In detail:

1. Header data: project, occasion, date, time, location, chair, minute taker, attendees, apologies and distribution list.
2. Agenda items: for each item a short summary of the discussion and the result or decision. Follow the agenda if there is one.
3. Action items: what, who, by when. A table makes the list easy to scan.
4. Open items and next meeting: what was postponed and when the next meeting takes place.

Write in the present tense and name people instead of using "we". "T. Weber schedules the Saturday shifts by 14 Oct" leaves no question open.

Meeting Minutes Example: Construction Site Meeting

The following action minutes come from a fictional office building project. They continue the status report from our article on how to write an executive summary: there the project manager asks for two decisions, here they are made.

The example shows what makes effective meeting minutes: every item ends with a decision or an action, every action has a name and a date, and the minutes go out the day after the meeting.

Meeting Minutes Template to Copy

Copy the template into your word processor, notes app or an email and fill in the fields. The button at the top right of the block copies the whole text.

MEETING MINUTES

Project:          [project name]
Meeting:          [occasion, e.g. site meeting no. ...]
Date, time:       [DD/MM/YYYY], [hh:mm] to [hh:mm]
Location:         [room or video call]
Chair:            [name]
Minutes:          [name]
Attendees:        [name (role)], [name (role)]
Apologies:        [name (role)]
Distribution:     [attendees, other recipients]

ITEM 1: [topic]
Discussion:       [two to three sentences, in summary]
Outcome:          [decision or result]

ITEM 2: [topic]
Discussion:       [...]
Outcome:          [...]

ACTION ITEMS
No. | Action               | Owner          | Due
1   | [...]                | [name]         | [DD/MM/YYYY]
2   | [...]                | [name]         | [DD/MM/YYYY]

OPEN ITEMS
- [postponed topic, new date]

NEXT MEETING
[DD/MM/YYYY], [hh:mm], [location]

Prefer Word? The Word template for meeting minutes contains the same fields on two pages: header data, several topic blocks with discussion, outcome and action table, plus a section for other business.

How Do You Transfer Meeting Results to Merlin Project?

In Merlin Project you attach each meeting result to the activity it concerns. Merlin Project offers six attachment types; four of them match the content of minutes directly:

Here is how to file the example minutes in Merlin Project:

1. In the work breakdown, select the activity "Facade installation" and choose Insert > Attachment > Information. Enter the decision on the Saturday shifts.
2. On the activity "Ventilation 2nd floor", add the missing opening with Insert > Attachment > Issue: Assigned to M. Yilmaz, Fix until 14 Oct 2026.
3. Record the small tasks from item 1 (schedule Saturday shifts, inform neighbors) as a Checklist on "Facade installation".
4. Enter the next site meeting on 21 Oct 2026 as an Event with start, end and attendees.
5. The elevator award recommendation has a real duration and deadline; it becomes its own activity assigned to S. Brandt.

Attachments in Merlin Project

With Insert > Attachment you attach a checklist, event, file, information, issue or risk to an activity, an assignment or a resource. The attachments view filters by type, and the built-in Attachments report lists all attachments in one table per type. The lesson Managing attachments explains the details, and the feature page Attachments in Merlin Project gives an overview. Merlin Project Express offers only the File attachment type.

The benefit: decisions live where they take effect. Anyone who wants to know in three months why the facade was installed on Saturdays finds the information on the activity instead of in an inbox. The Personal Tasks this Week report shows each team member their activities for the current week, including attachments.

Setting up a new construction project? The Merlin Project templates for architecture and construction give you an activity structure to attach meeting results to.

Prefer to take minutes visually? Create them as a mind map in Merlin Project: date, time, location and attendees on the left, agenda items with notes on the right. Our project meeting mind map template contains this structure with five agenda items.

Can AI Write Meeting Minutes?

AI can turn the recording or transcript of a meeting into draft minutes with action items; you still have to check them and take responsibility. Microsoft Teams offers "intelligent recap" with AI notes and tasks for this, according to Microsoft Support with a Teams Premium or Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

Two limits always apply:

• No recording, no AI minutes. The tools work from a transcript or recording. Recording a non-public conversation without consent is a criminal offense in Germany under Section 201 of the Criminal Code, and other countries have their own consent rules. Ask all attendees for consent before you start.
• AI does not know the context. It cannot tell which sentence was a decision and which was an idea. Proofread the draft before it goes to the distribution list.

Tips for Effective Meeting Minutes

These seven tips make minutes useful and easier to write:

1. Ask questions. If you missed or misunderstood a point, ask right away. A question takes seconds; a wrong entry may cost another meeting.

2. Use bullet points and abbreviations. They help you keep up with the conversation. Use only abbreviations you can still decode later.

3. Leave space. "Let's go back to item 1 …": with some space under each item you add late points without chaos.

4. Don't overdo it. Action minutes need decisions and actions, not every contribution. Ask yourself: do the minutes reflect the goal of the meeting?

5. Stay objective. Record decisions even when you disagree with them. Emotions do not belong in the minutes.

6. Read the results out at the end. Two minutes at the close of the meeting fix errors on the spot and remind everyone of their tasks.

7. Send the minutes promptly. Write up your notes right after the meeting and send them by the next working day at the latest. Every day of delay costs memory.

Helpful Links

• The Department of Communication Studies at San José State University has published a Lesson Plan: How to Write Agendas and Meeting Minutes, including a 17-page PowerPoint presentation.
• YouTube has videos on "Writing Meeting Minutes".

If you have any questions about this blog article or would like to discuss it, we look forward to your contribution in our forum.