Forums / Tips & Tricks

RTM has become my team's one-stop meeting organization solution for sharing agenda items, recording our minutes, and following up. Here's what we do:



* Agendas
When anyone thinks of an agenda item during the week, they create a task with the agenda title, tag it with "team-meeting" and their name (so we know who added it), and share it with the other team members.

Also, throughout my week I often think of things I need to discuss with each team member. When I do, I make a task and tag it with their name (e.g. "john-meeting.") and my name. Then when we see each other, we both know what each other wants to discuss (by doing a search for "tag:john-meeting")

This is so much more efficient than emailing agenda items or talking points because it's all in one place and easily sorted. Also, it encourages handling discussions in-person instead of via email.



* Minutes
At the meeting, if we discuss an agenda item, we mark it complete, and if not it stays until the next meeting. The useful part of meeting minutes are the action items and the team decisions. In the case of action items, I create a task, tag it "action" and the name of the person who has to do it, and then share it with everyone. In the case of a team decision, I create a task tagged with "decision" and then share it with everyone.

Again, it's much easier to peruse the history of what we discussed and decided in RTM than to to search through several emails old emails.



* Follow-up
I have a saved search for all my team members (e.g "tag:action tag:name"). That way I can see the action items they were assigned, and if they completed the item. They can do the same for me.

Posted at 8:29am on September 19, 2009