Tasleemat Forms Guide

Project Artifact: Meeting Minutes

Document Reference: PMO-05.11

This document provides a comprehensive, professional reference to understand the purpose and effective usage of the Meeting Minutes in alignment with the Tasleemat framework.

1. What?

Five things, in the order a reader needs them: what the meeting was called to settle, who was there, what was discussed and why, what was agreed, and what was assigned to whom by when. The last is a table because that is the only form in which an assignment survives being read a week later, when the owner and the date are the two things a paragraph has already lost.

2. Why?

Because a meeting is a decision-making device, and a decision that was not written down did not happen as far as anyone outside the room is concerned. The minutes also settle a question that comes up repeatedly, which is what was weighed. A decision taken over an objection is a decision somebody will reopen, and the objection is the part that tells you whether reopening it is reasonable.

3. When?

Written while the meeting is being held or immediately after it, not at the end of the week, because the value of the record decays with every hour it is not written down. The discussion is recorded as the reasoning, not the speech: what was said has almost no bearing on what was agreed, and a record of the speech cannot be read later.

4. Who?

Written by whoever took the notes, which is not always the chair, and approved by the chair before it is circulated. The chair signs because a minute that records a decision as agreed commits the chair to having put it to the room. The project manager signs because most of what a project meeting decides lands in the project record rather than staying in the file.

Tailoring Tips

Write the decisions, not the discussion. Most of what was said has no bearing on what was agreed, and minutes that record the speech cannot be read by anybody afterwards.
Name an owner and a date or write nothing. An action item with neither is a topic for the next meeting, and topics accumulate until the meeting is cancelled for lack of them.
Record the objection. A decision taken over a stated objection is one that will be reopened, and the objection is what tells you whether that matters this time.

Alignment & Dependencies

1. Pre-requisites & Inputs (Upstream Dependencies)

Mandatory:
- Project Management Plan (PMO-04.01.01)
- Approved Baselines: Scope (PMO-04.02.05), Schedule (PMO-04.03.08), Cost (PMO-04.04.04)
Optional / Contextual:
- Risk Register (PMO-04.08.02)
- Stakeholder Engagement Plan (PMO-04.10.01)

2. Downstream Dependents

Mandatory:
- Project Status Report (PMO-06.01)
- Change Log (PMO-05.04)
- Lessons Learned Summary (PMO-07.01)
Optional / Contextual:
- Variance Analysis (PMO-06.04)
- Decision Log (PMO-05.02)

5. How?

To accurately complete the Meeting Minutes, populate the following sections based on the project context (ensuring reference to parameters.md for the general project variables):

Meeting Objective: What the meeting was called to settle, in one sentence. A purpose written after the meeting is a summary, and it is the only line that tells a reader whether anything was decided.
Attendees: Who was there, and who sent apologies. The list is not administrative: it is what tells a later reader whose agreement a decision carries, and who has to be told when the position changes.
Key Discussion Points: The matters discussed, with the reasoning recorded alongside the conclusion. A decision with no recorded reasoning is one that gets relitigated, because the next person cannot see what was weighed.
Decisions Made: What was agreed, one per entry, attributed to the meeting that agreed it. This section is the one that is read later, and anything not written here did not happen as far as the record is concerned.
Action Items: What was assigned, to whom, and by when. Written as a table because a task in a paragraph has no owner and no deadline a week later, and an action item without those two is a note.

Associated Templates

6. Reference Example

A fully completed, gold-standard reference example illustrating this artifact in practice is available:

📖 Completed Example: 05_11_Meeting_Minutes_Example.md