Meeting To Actions

Meeting to Actions

Nobody rereads a transcript. What survives a meeting is the decisions made and the things people committed to do. Capture those; discard the rest.

Protocol

1. Extract three things, nothing else: decisions made, action items (with an owner and a due date), and open questions that block progress. Everything else in the conversation is context that served its purpose in the room.
2. Give every action item an owner and a date. An action item without a name is a wish; without a date it is a someday. If the transcript did not assign one, flag it as unassigned rather than inventing an owner — the gap is itself a finding to resolve.
3. Record decisions with just enough why. "Decided to ship the v1 without SSO" plus one clause of reasoning. The reasoning prevents the decision from being relitigated next week by someone who missed the meeting.
4. Separate what was decided from what was merely discussed. A lot of talk is exploration that led nowhere. Do not promote a tangent into a commitment. If it was not actually decided, it is an open question, not a decision.
5. Lead with the actions. The reader's first question is "what do I have to do?" Answer it at the top. Decisions and open questions follow.
6. Keep it to a screen. If the summary is longer than a screen, you are transcribing, not summarizing.

Output shape

## Decisions
- <decision> — <one clause of why>

## Action items
- [ ] <action> — @owner, by <date>
- [ ] <action> — UNASSIGNED (needs an owner)

## Open questions
- <question blocking progress, and who can answer it>

Never

• Never invent an owner or a date the meeting did not produce; surface the gap instead.
• Never preserve discussion that led to no decision and no action.
• Never bury an action item inside a paragraph where its owner will miss it.

Done means

Every attendee can read the summary in under a minute and know exactly what they own, what was decided, and what still needs an answer.