Working life and HR
Template: minutes from an all-hands meeting
A minute template for all-hands meetings, with the information given, the questions from the floor and the honest answers, including what management could not answer.
MINUTES: ALL-HANDS MEETING
[date], [__.__]–[__.__] | [place or stream]
[number] participants in the room, [number] on stream.
OPENED BY
[Name], [role]
INFORMATION GIVEN
1. [Topic]
[Short rendering of the main points. Numbers where numbers were given.]
2. [Topic]
[...]
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
1. [Question]
Answer: [what was answered, by whom]
2. [Question]
Answer: [...]
QUESTIONS WE COULD NOT ANSWER TODAY
- [Question]. Answer comes from [name] by [date], via [channel].
WHAT HAPPENS NOW
| What | When | Who informs |
|------|------|-------------|
| | | |
Recording and slides are at [place].
Minutes taken by: [name]How to use it
- Write down the questions you could not answer. With a name and a date. It is the only part of an all-hands that separates openness from performance, and it decides whether people ask questions next time.
- Do not name the askers. Minutes that tie a critical question to a person make the next all-hands silent.
- Render numbers that were given. Spoken numbers from a stage are misremembered by half the room.
- Send the minutes to everyone, including those who were not signed up. An all-hands is by definition about something that concerns everyone.
Open for written questions in advance
The hardest questions rarely come from a microphone in front of three hundred colleagues. Collect them anonymously beforehand and answer them in the meeting. Then the all-hands is about what people actually wonder about.
Frequently asked questions
The information given, the questions from the floor, and the answers. Especially the questions that could not be answered on the spot, with a name and a date for when the answer will come.
It is common in large organisations, both for those who could not attend and so that the minutes come out right. The recording should be announced at the start, and questions from the floor should be answerable without the asker being named in the minutes.
Open for written questions in advance and anonymously. The hardest questions rarely come from a microphone in front of three hundred colleagues.