How to run a site meeting and keep minutes that hold up
Run each meeting from the last one’s open items, write decisions down as decisions, and send the minutes the same day.
Bigger jobs run on a regular meeting. On commercial work it’s the OAC meeting: the owner, the architect or consultants, and you, the contractor.
With your own trades it’s the weekly coordination meeting: who’s on site, what’s arriving, and who’s waiting on whom.
The minutes are what’s left when everyone goes home. Months later, when someone asks who approved a change or why a date moved, they’re the record you point to.
Run it from a standing agenda
Use the same sections in the same order at every meeting, so nothing gets skipped and people know when their topic comes up. Safety goes first. A typical OAC agenda:
- Health and safety
- Schedule and the lookahead
- RFIs, submittals and site instructions
- Changes and their pricing
- Deliveries, testing and inspections
- Invoicing
- New business
Keep a trade meeting shorter: safety, the next two or three weeks, coordination between trades, manpower, deliveries and deficiencies.
Start every meeting from the last one’s open items. Send them out a day or two ahead with the agenda, so people come with answers instead of hearing the question for the first time.
Give every open item an owner and a date
An item without a name and a date is a wish. Every open item needs four things:
- A number to point to, like 3.2.
- What has to happen, in one line: “Confirm the beam size at grid C4,” not “Beam.”
- One owner: a named person, not a company or “all.”
- A due date agreed in the room, not one the note-taker picked afterwards.
Note the meeting each item was first raised in. An item first raised six meetings ago tells everyone it’s stuck.
Close an item only when it’s done, and say how: “Answered in RFI-014,” or “Delivered October 3.” Leave it in the minutes where it was closed, so the record shows how it ended.
Write decisions as decisions
Minutes aren’t a transcript. Nobody needs ten minutes of who said what. They need what was decided, who decided it, and what happens next.
- Instead of “Tile layout discussed,” write “Owner approved the tile layout on sheet A301, revision 2. No change to price or schedule. Closed.”
- Instead of “Windows late,” write “Supplier confirmed windows for October 20. Mike Carter to update the schedule by Friday.”
Use plain decision words: approved, rejected, agreed, to confirm by. If something was talked about and not decided, say so, and give it an owner and a date.
Minutes don’t replace the paperwork
If a decision changes the price, the scope or the schedule, it still needs its own change order, site instruction or RFI answer. Note its number in the minutes.
Send them out the same day
Minutes written a week later are written from memory, and everyone remembers the meeting differently. Send them the same day, or the next morning at the latest.
Send them to everyone who was there, everyone with an item, and anyone who has to act. Put the open items with owners and dates near the top, where people will see their names.
Ask for corrections by a set time, like before the next meeting, and say in the minutes that they stand as written unless corrected. Then hold to it.
Number every set of minutes and keep each one as it was sent. If you change them later, the new copy gets a revision number.
When someone disputes the minutes
Sooner or later someone writes back that the minutes are wrong: they never approved that, or the date was never agreed. Don’t argue it out by email. Work through it.
- Check the record. Look at your notes, any recording, the drawings and the emails around the meeting. Was it said, and by whom?
- If they’re right, correct it. Issue a revision of the minutes, and say what changed. Never quietly edit the copy everyone already has.
- If you disagree, keep both sides. Leave the minutes as issued, and record their objection under the item in the next minutes, with your answer.
- Settle it at the next meeting. Put it on the agenda, decide it in the room, and minute the decision like any other.
Check your contract
Your contract may say who keeps the minutes and how long people have to object. If you record a meeting, tell everyone first. The rules on recording people differ from place to place.
How CrewLog does it
In CrewLog, minutes live on each job’s Meetings tab, a series for each meeting you hold, like your OAC, trade and site meetings, each with a standard agenda to start from.
Items are numbered by section, like 2.3, with the meeting they were first raised in, an owner and a due date. Start the next meeting, and the open items come forward with their notes.
Record the meeting on a phone, upload a recording or paste your notes, and AI drafts the minutes into your agenda. CrewLog reminds you to tell everyone first.
Each new item and update shows the words it came from. One whose words weren’t said is left out, and so is any due date nobody said. Nothing goes in until you add it.
Issue the minutes and they’re locked. Send them as a PDF, and the email lists the open items that have an owner. To correct them, amend them and issue a revision.
Meeting minutes and AI minutes are on Crew at $89 a month and Pro at $179. Compare the plans.
More on meeting minutes on the features page.