maestria-co/post-meeting

Skill: Post-Meeting

Purpose

Convert meeting discussions into durable, actionable records. Prevents decisions from being lost, action items from falling through the cracks, and participants from having different understandings of what was agreed.

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Process

1. Summary

Goal: Provide context in 2-3 sentences for someone who wasn't there.

Answer:

• What was the meeting about?
• What was the key outcome?

Example:

Sprint planning meeting for Sprint 42. Team committed to 38 points focused on real-time
order tracking. Identified dependency on Partner API key, due by Day 3.

2. Attendees

Goal: Record who was present and their role for context.

Format:

**Attendees:**
- Alice Chen (Engineering Lead)
- Bob Smith (Product Manager)
- Carol Davis (Designer)

Why include roles:

• Provides context for who made decisions
• Helps future readers understand perspective
• Clarifies who to follow up with

3. Decisions Made

Goal: Separate decisions from discussion and action items.

Format:

**Decision:** [Statement of fact about what was decided]
**Rationale:** [Why this decision was made]
**Decided by:** [Who made the call, if applicable]

Rules:

• Each decision as a declarative statement ("We decided to X")
• Include the "why" — future readers need context
• If decision has an owner, note it
• Separate from action items (a decision is not an action)

Example:

**Decision:** Use offset-based pagination instead of cursor-based for orders API
**Rationale:** Our use case (customers viewing recent orders) doesn't need arbitrary page jumps, and offset is simpler to implement
**Decided by:** Engineering Lead (Alice)

4. Action Items

Goal: Ensure every action has an owner and a deadline.

Format:

[Owner] — [Action verb] — [Deliverable] — by [Date]

Rules:

• Every action item must have an owner (name, not role)
• Every action item must have a deadline
• Use action verbs (draft, send, review, deploy, test, schedule)
• Be specific about deliverable (not "look into X" — what is the output?)

No owner = no action item — if it has no owner, it's a suggestion or future work, not an action.

Example:

**Action Items:**

1. Alice — Draft RFC for orders API pagination — by Jan 20
2. Bob — Send Partner API key request to Partner team — by Jan 17
3. Carol — Review and approve status icon designs — by Jan 19
4. Alice — Schedule follow-up review meeting — by Jan 22

5. Discussion Notes

Goal: Capture key points raised, concerns, and rationale that informed decisions.

Include:

• Important concerns raised
• Options discussed (even if not chosen)
• Constraints identified
• Assumptions made

Don't include:

• Verbatim transcripts
• Tangential discussions
• Every comment made

Example:

**Discussion Notes:**

- Concern raised: Cursor-based pagination would require client changes
- Alternative discussed: Infinite scroll, rejected due to API latency remaining for other clients
- Assumption: 80% of customers view only the first 2 pages of orders
- Constraint: Must maintain backward compatibility for 6 months to allow client migration

6. Open Questions

Goal: Track items discussed but not decided — and who is responsible for resolving them.

Format:

**Question:** [The unresolved question]
**Owner:** [Who will resolve it]
**Due:** [When a decision is needed]

Rules:

• If it was decided, it's not an open question (move to Decisions)
• If there's no owner or deadline, it's a risk, not an open question
• Open questions block progress — highlight them

Example:

**Open Questions:**

1. **Question:** Should we support page sizes >100 for admin users?
   **Owner:** Bob (Product)
   **Due:** Jan 22 (before implementation starts)

2. **Question:** Do we need to support sorting by order date in first release?
   **Owner:** Alice (Engineering)
   **Due:** Jan 20 (as part of RFC review)

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Templates

Meeting Notes Template

# [Meeting Title]

**Date:** [YYYY-MM-DD]
**Time:** [HH:MM - HH:MM]
**Attendees:**
- [Name] ([Role])
- [Name] ([Role])

---

## Summary

[2-3 sentences: what was the meeting about and what was the key outcome?]

---

## Decisions Made

1. **Decision:** [Statement]
   **Rationale:** [Why]
   **Decided by:** [Who]

2. **Decision:** [Statement]
   **Rationale:** [Why]
   **Decided by:** [Who]

---

## Action Items

1. [Owner] — [Action] — [Deliverable] — by [Date]
2. [Owner] — [Action] — [Deliverable] — by [Date]

---

## Discussion Notes

- [Key point raised]
- [Alternative discussed]
- [Constraint identified]
- [Assumption made]

---

## Open Questions

1. **Question:** [Unresolved question]
   **Owner:** [Who will resolve]
   **Due:** [When decision needed]

2. **Question:** [Unresolved question]
   **Owner:** [Who will resolve]
   **Due:** [When decision needed]

---

Examples

✅ Good Meeting Notes

# Sprint 42 Planning Meeting

**Date:** 2025-01-15
**Time:** 10:00 - 11:30
**Attendees:**
- Alice Chen (Engineering Lead)
- Bob Smith (Product Manager)
- Carol Davis (Designer)
- Dan Lee (QA Engineer)

---

## Summary

Sprint planning for Sprint 42, focused on real-time order tracking. Team committed to
38 points across 2 sprint goals. Identified dependency on Partner API key, needed by
Day 3 of the sprint.

---

## Decisions Made

1. **Decision:** Commit to 38 story points across 8 stories for Sprint 42
   **Rationale:** Team velocity is 40 points; 38 provides buffer for Partner API integration unknowns
   **Decided by:** Team consensus

2. **Decision:** Mark email notifications for order status as out of scope for this sprint
   **Rationale:** Requires separate infrastructure for email sending; focus sprint on core tracking feature
   **Decided by:** Product Manager (Bob)

---

## Action Items

1. Alice — Draft RFC for orders API pagination — by Jan 20
2. Bob — Send Partner API key request to Partner team — by Jan 17 (blocking)
3. Carol — Finalize status icon designs and share in Slack — by Jan 18
4. Dan — Set up test data in staging for order tracking scenarios — by Jan 19
5. Alice — Schedule mid-sprint check-in for Day 5 — by Jan 16

---

## Discussion Notes

- Concern raised: Partner API integration is untested; could be a sprint risk
  - Mitigation: Bob to request API key by Jan 17; Alice to spike integration on Day 1-2
- Alternative discussed: Build email notifications in parallel
  - Rejected: Would split focus and risk not completing core tracking feature
- Assumption: Real-time tracking will reduce "Where is my order?" tickets by 30%
  - Plan: Track ticket volume pre- and post-release to validate
- Constraint: Must support both old and new order status formats during migration period

---

## Open Questions

1. **Question:** Should manual status updates be admin-only or available to customer support agents?
   **Owner:** Bob (Product)
   **Due:** Jan 18 (needed for AC review)

2. **Question:** Do we need to support status history (view all past status changes) in first release?
   **Owner:** Carol (Design)
   **Due:** Jan 19 (impacts UI design)

❌ Bad Meeting Notes

# Meeting Notes

We talked about the sprint. Alice is doing some stuff with the API. Bob is going to
email someone about something. We need to decide about the icons.

**Action Items:**
- Alice: API stuff
- Bob: Email
- Someone: Icons

**Next Steps:**
- Follow up later

Why this is bad:

• No attendees list (who was there?)
• No summary (what was the meeting about?)
• Decisions mixed with actions (what was decided vs. what needs doing?)
• Action items have no deadlines or specific deliverables
• "Someone" is not an owner
• No discussion notes (what was the context?)
• "Follow up later" is not an action (no owner, no deadline, no deliverable)

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Constraints

• Every action item must have an owner and a date — no exceptions
• Never mix decisions and action items in the same list — they serve different purposes
• If no decisions were made, state that explicitly — do not invent decisions
• Do not use roles as owners — use names (roles change, people are accountable)
• Do not capture verbatim discussion — summarize key points and context
• Vague actions are not action items — "look into X" must become "draft analysis of X by [date]"
• Open questions must have owners and deadlines — unowned questions are not tracked