Just because the meeting is over—it ain’t over. Many meetings yield a great discussion, only to have participants walk away and become absorbed back into their work and forget about their role in keeping agreements and commitments.

In order to avoid the additional time and expense of redundant meetings, it is important to manage the meeting follow-up closely.

Before the meeting ends, the follow-up elements need to be agreed on:

Who is, and by when, going to distribute:

Meeting Notes: To ensure that everyone has a record of the key facts, ideas, needs, and decisions. Often, the meeting Scribe takes responsibility for getting meeting notes typed up and sent to each participant.
Manage Agreements: To ensure that action items are carried out, the meeting chair often takes responsibility for developing clear action plans and holding people accountable for their commitments. Additional individual meetings may need to be called to manage the action items.