Meeting Workflow

Meeting Workflow

Takes a raw meeting transcript and turns it into structured records — a note with a clean summary, decisions, and context, plus one tracked task per action item.

The workflow has three phases: Extract, Structure & Confirm, and Write (to {{RECORD_SYSTEM}}). Extraction requires careful reading and judgment about what matters; the write requires your record system's exact conventions; keeping them separate prevents each from corrupting the other.

Input Formats

• Pasted text in the conversation
• Uploaded file — .vtt, .srt, or .txt
• A summary from the user — sometimes the user describes what happened rather than providing a verbatim transcript. Extract what you can from whatever is provided.

If the input is .vtt or .srt, strip timestamp lines to get clean text before processing. Keep speaker names — they're needed for owner attribution.

Verbatim beats AI summaries. If your meeting tool offers both a verbatim transcript and an AI-generated summary, always extract from the verbatim. Tool summaries routinely flip attribution ("X offered to do Y" becomes "Y assigned to X") and fabricate causality. If ONLY a summary is available, label the resulting note DEGRADED MODE — AI summary only and list action items as "summary-derived claims (require user verification)" instead of filing them as tasks.

Phase 1: Extract

Read the full transcript carefully. You're looking for six things:

1. Summary (2-4 sentences)

What was this meeting about? Who was there? What was the main outcome? Write it the way you'd brief someone who missed the call — concise, factual, no filler.

2. Decisions

Anything where the group agreed on a direction, chose an option, or committed to an approach. These are often implicit ("ok let's go with option B") rather than formally announced. If no decisions were made, say so — don't manufacture them.

3. Action Items

Each action item needs:

• What: clear, actionable description (not "follow up on the thing")
• Who: the person responsible. Match speaker names to known contacts where possible; if the owner is ambiguous, flag it for the user to clarify.
• When: due date if one was mentioned. Many won't have explicit dates — leave the date blank rather than guessing.
• Priority: infer from context. Blockers and time-sensitive items = High; "when you get a chance" = Low; default Medium.

3.5 Action Item Decomposition (CRITICAL)

Named action items in summaries are usually workstream labels, not atomic tasks.

A line like "Deliver the Phase 1 proposal Friday" reads as one action but typically contains 4-10 distinct sub-tasks. Filing one task per literal bullet captures roughly a quarter of the actual work. For each action item, run five expansion lenses:

1. Atomic check — one action or a workstream? Heuristic: >30 min of focused work, or a multi-part deliverable → workstream → expand.
2. Pre-requisite work — what design / decision / coordination must happen first? Each becomes its own task.
3. Deliverable decomposition — if the action produces a bundled deliverable (proposal, plan, deck), enumerate the pieces; each is usually its own task.
4. Conditional follow-on — what work depends on this action's outcome? Stage as conditional tasks (Medium priority, no due date, "Conditional: triggers on X" in the description). Cap at ~6 conditionals per workstream — beyond that, file a single "scope the follow-up" placeholder.
5. Coordination — does executing this require alignment with another stakeholder? That's a separate task with a clear owner.

Carry the expanded list into the confirmation step — never present the literal-only list.

4. Open Questions

Raised but not resolved. These often become the next meeting's agenda.

5. Key Context

Notable quotes, data points, or references with lasting value beyond the meeting itself — a specific metric, a URL shared, a document referenced. Don't transcribe everything.

6. Synthesis Signals

Flag anything that updates, contradicts, or extends what's already known about the project or client: a decision that reverses a previous one, new information about priorities or timeline, a technical finding that changes the architecture, a stakeholder change, a scope change. Many meetings produce none — don't force it. When present, they're the most valuable part of the meeting because they update the state of the world.

Second-pass re-read (mandatory)

After decomposition and before confirmation, re-read the FULL source and diff it against your extraction. First-pass extraction satisfices and misses 15-25% of extractable content. For every missed item: add it, or flag it if it changes the shape of what you're about to file.

Phase 1.5: Structure & Confirm

Before writing anything, present the extracted data to the user:

**Meeting**: [inferred title in "Purpose (Attendees)" format]
**Date**: [meeting date if known, otherwise today]
**Project**: [best guess from transcript content]

## Summary
[2-4 sentences]

## Decisions
- [...]

## Action Items (after decomposition — expanded sub-tasks, not literal summary lines)
1. [task] — Owner — Due: [date or TBD] — Priority: [H/M/L]

## Open Questions
- [...]

## Synthesis Signals (if any)
- [...]

**Ready to write? Any corrections?**

Common corrections: wrong project mapping, misattributed owners, a missed implicit decision, priority adjustments. Wait for confirmation before Phase 2.

Phase 2: Write to {{RECORD_SYSTEM}}

Write one note (summary + attendees + decisions + action-item checklist + open questions

• key context) and one task per action item to {{TASK_TRACKER}}, following your record system's conventions — exact field names, relations to the project and contacts, search-before-create to avoid duplicating an existing prep note for the same meeting. If a prep note exists, update it rather than creating a duplicate, and say so.

Phase 3: Compile and Synthesize

Skip entirely if Phase 1 produced no synthesis signals. Otherwise:

• Supersession: find the record where a now-reversed decision was logged and add an "Updated by [this meeting] on [date]" callout — future sessions must not act on stale decisions.
• Scope/timeline change: update the project record only if the change is confirmed; tentative mentions stay in the meeting note.
• Cross-reference: if the meeting continued a prior discussion or resolved a prior open question, link both records.
• Report what was updated in 2-3 lines; if nothing matched, skip the report.

Edge Cases

• Multiple unrelated projects in one meeting → one note per project; flag during confirmation.
• No action items → fine; note only, no tasks.
• Messy or partial transcript → work with what you have; flag unclear attribution in the confirmation. A partial note beats no note.
• Tentative synthesis signal → include it in the confirmation marked "Tentative — confirm before updating project records." Don't update project records on ambiguity.

Adaptation points

• {{RECORD_SYSTEM}} — where notes live (a wiki DB, a docs/ folder, your CRM...)
• {{TASK_TRACKER}} — where action items become tracked tasks (often the same system)