Recording Meetings 5

[bigmig]

This post is will hopefully benefit someone who was like me a few years ago, starting out, wondering "how to do it" in terms of solid business practices.

After just going through a 'difference' in opinion on what was said during a project meeting that meant the difference between me being wrong (and sued) and the client eating their fair share of blame, I just wanted to say that if you are an engineer and you have clients, you need to audio record your meetings.

The audio recorders are so cheap, and these days small (about the size of a small candy bar), relative to a "he said said you said" conversation, there is no comparison.

An audio recording is undeniable, keeps people honest (because they know you recorded them) and is worth its weight 20 times over in solid gold in terms of protecting you from getting sued. Honest clients appreciate you doing it because it shows that you value what they say.

My only regret is not making routine audio recordings of all my client meetings sooner. Hopefully this helps someone out.

 

[cvg]

first of all, check the local laws. There is a federal one-consent law, but some states require consent of all parties to the conversation.

https://www.mwl-law.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/LAWS-ON-RECORDING-CONVERSATIONS-CHART.pdf

Second, ask your client, not all appreciate it.

Use your cell phone to do the recording, you probably don't need another device

 

[MacGyverS2000]

And in the intelligence community, if I were to even attempt to record someone I would not only find myself out of a job, I would likely find myself in jail.

Perhaps the best solution is to send an email with the salient points as you understood them. The receiver has an opportunity to correct/clarify any misunderstandings, and it's now a written record that both parties are agreeing to. Arguing against such a record in court is an uphill climb... if the receiver changes his mind later, you have proof that was not their original viewpoint.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[Ron]

About 20 years ago, after going through numerous disputes after pre-construction conferences, I made the decision to have court reporter at a pre-roofing conference for a large public school re-roofing project. There were numerous complaints from the attendees, but the bottom line was that there would be no discrepancy as to the discussion. While there was spirited debate during the pre-con, there were NO challenges to the decisions made during the pre-con and no claims thereafter of not being informed of the design and expected QC issues. In short....money well spent for the actual documentation and the intimidation factor!

Point 2....if you have a lawyer in a meeting, they will generally vehemently resist recording the meeting! I had one tell me once "if you record this meeting it is over right now!"

 

[SLTA]

Ron - that may be a sign to run away from that client...

Please remember: we're not all guys!

 

[GregLocock]

We're specifically not allowed to record meetings. The best design teams I ever attended we used to write the minutes together /as the discussion occurred/. That is, the actual intent of the meeting was to produce a coherent set of minuted decisions. Since that is presumably the intent of many meetings I am astonished that this excellent practice was allowed to die out.



Cheers

Greg Locock


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[KENAT]

As others say, I'd caution on the recording aspect. However well done minutes should work for most situations.

If as Greg says you take notes as you go along, recap them - especially any actions & decisions - at the end of the meeting and then circulate them shortly after with request that anyone who doesn't agree lets you know within x time frame or similar that should work well.

Also means you've confirmed all points twice which reduces chance of misunderstandings.

Takes a little more effort than hitting record but imo gives more benefit too.

I rarely hold a meeting without sending minutes or at least confirmation email afterwards.

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[SNORGY]

I'm pretty old-school, but when I am in Client meetings, even if I'm the Project Engineer or Project Manager and I have a bunch of folks with me who I *could* delegate the minute-taking to, I usually take minutes myself. What I have found works well for me is, within 24 hours of the meeting, I send a draft copy of the minutes to the Client for his/her "is what I wrote what you meant?" review. Upon receipt and incorporation of mutually-agreed comments, the minutes of the meeting are officially entered as a matter of record. This approach has never failed me.

And, just as I posted this, I now see KENAT has said the exact same thing before I could.

 

[JedClampett]

I would third the idea of taking minutes. You're bound to get the salient points, condensed down, without the "ums" and crosstalk that a recording is going to have. People have accents, some have soft voices, there's a chance that depending on a recording might lull you into a false confidence.
Let's face it, a recording would be great, but if you take minutes plus get concurrence from the participants, that's pretty iron clad too.

 

[berkshire]

In the past I would have to take minutes at meetings, however, I don't write that fast, so I would put a pocket recorder in my jacket, everybody, "knew" ,I was ,"recording ", the meeting, when I got home, I would compare what I had written to what was said, then make corrections if needed, before I sent out the minutes.
This worked for me without any complaints.
B.E.

You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.

 

[oldestguy]

This reminds me of something that I practiced for all of my working days. Beside my phone was a stenographer's note book. I kept notes of every phone call. Most never were used, but now and then they were very handy as in court to "refresh" the memory of someone had no recollection of the conversation. A few other instances came up where the written notes were very useful. Never had any objections.

 

[Agent666]

I've never recorded meetings, but I do record all my phone calls. I've only had to use them once in real anger to defend my position.

But in many cases it comes into its own regarding disputes about timing and something the Contractor said but was denying even if it's only to refresh you memory of events. It is enough to say to the Contractor 'I don't think that's correct, I'll have to go back through my call recordings and check' to get them to change their tune as they know that the game is up.

Moral of the story is that it's there as an important fall back if it's really required.

 

[hokie66]

In a project meeting, and I am referring to a construction project, a recorder in the middle of the table is a good tool to make sure the minutes are correct. These meetings typically don't involve lawyers, and I haven't had objections to the recorder.

 

[truckandbus]

I had a coworker who recorded meetings 'because he could' (got a new toy for Christmas)and that only lasted one or two meetings since he quickly found out sitting through a meeting is bad enough but sitting through it twice to create minutes was worse than root canal. I can't see the value in having a recording without minutes since both parties could argue more was said after the recording stopped

 

[MikeHalloran]

I tried using a solid state recorder in meetings for a while.
Actually, I tried tape recordings long before that, but they broke up the flow of the meeting and/or missed stuff during tape changes.
Just as truckandbus said, that meant I had to endure the meeting twice. ... at least.

Real Dictaphone(r) systems' transcription stations had special no-hands functions, including a footpedal to control the playback, playback at faster than real time speed (for fast typists), and auto-backspace that would back up a few seconds on restarting, so you could recall the preceding few words. Without features like that, transcription is a nightmare of moving your hands from recorder to keyboard and back.

It took me most of a day to transcribe a two hour meeting, so I decided it was not an efficient use of my time.
After that, I copied the audio file to a hard drive just in case of conflict,
but published a summary of my own notes as minutes.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[1gibson]

On one especially long conference call, the client kept pursing a very specifically worded argument trying to get me to agree to some scope creep. I got bored answering the same question the same way, and to pass the time I decided to google the conference call service. One of the features on their website was automatic recording of all calls. Never trust a third party dial in service, and never trust a contractor who has a problem they think you should solve for them, for free (in other words, never trust a contractor.) If they had asked a few more times I might have said "sure, whatever" so I could have gone to lunch.

Then they snuck the answer they wanted me to give but never did, in the meeting minutes. I had to correct and return the minutes, which lead to another conference call... This was about 7 years ago so I don't recall the name of the service, but I'm sure there are plenty with recording features.

 

[Sparweb]

Only once did I record a meeting. Since I knew that it was going to take several hours, and I would do a lot of speaking myself, I knew that I wouldn't be able to make comprehensive notes. Even so, I did take down some notes (in case the recording failed). The next day I summarized the meeting from my written notes and, as an experiment, didn't listen to the recording until after I had the minutes written to the best of my memory. Then I checked the recording, to see what I'd missed. Three hours later I had proven to myself that I really had been listening, and that recordings were mostly a waste of time. I circulated the minutes to the others that were at the meeting with no complaints or corrections.

I would also be concerned about making people ill at ease by recording them. It may not be that they have anything to hide or plan to change their mind - in fact it could be quite the opposite. The folks who want to build trust, see themselves as people who stick to their word, and prefer a handshake-deal instead of lawyers and contracts, are usually the best people to work with, but probably the most annoyed by recordings.


STF

 

[controlnovice]

Studies have been done to compare students retention of a subject in class when taking notes by laptop vs writing them down with pen/pencil/paper.

Writing down with pen/pencil/paper resulted in a better retention rate.

(Note: the study was supposed to have been funded by a pencil manufacturer)

Like others above: Take meeting minutes and send out for approval from all parties. I've found that few actually have time to read the minutes, so at least keep a record that the minutes were sent. Better yet, have it signed by the correct parties for approval of minutes.

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[hokie66]

Seems we have a divide between structural engineers and others. In the absence of a court reporter as Ron suggested, for me the only option of assuring an accurate record of a meeting which I am chairing is to use a recorder. Chairing, minuting, refereeing, too much for me.

 

[berkshire]

As Mike says you have to re-endure the meeting. My wife who was a commercial magazine editor used to let me use her Dictaphone foot pedal controlled player .
But it was still a chore.
B.E.

You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.