Anne:
YOU LET OUT THE BIG SECRET ABOUT MEETING MINUTES!
When I did Construction Contract Administration (CA), I always prepared and distributed the minutes. You are absolutely correct: s/he who controls the minutes, controls the project record.
I was successful in preparing meeting minutes, and received more than a few compliments, because of two big things: the minutes were accurate and they were fair (honest). Inaccurate and unfair minutes destroy the credibility of the one keeping notes. I believe many conflicts were headed off because it was clear from how the meeting minutes were recorded that the CA guy (me) would be truthful and fair. And I would hold firm on issues as necessary to assert the design team’s interests.
And a third thing was how they were organized. I listed each topic and assigned a number representing the meeting number when the issue was first discussed and then a sequential number was added for the order in which it came up at the meeting. And some keywords were included to readily identify the subject.
For example, the second item discussed at meeting no. 4, regarding gypsum board finish, would be “4-2 - Gypsum Board Finish.” The issue would retain this number forever. When resolved, it would be dropped from discussion. But it might come back later, such as at Contract Closeout, and the same number and keywords would be used. This way, it was easy to recall and read the thread of discussion.
This was not burdensome. I had to fly from the Bay Area to Los Angeles each week (a horrible culture shock) to attend the jobsite meeting. I already knew the status of at least 80 percent of the issues and actually prepared a draft of that week’s meeting minutes while on the plane, before the meeting started.
The meeting minutes were prepared as a summary of the discussion rather than a transcript, and included follow-up actions to be taken. The meetings ran efficiently and stayed on topic, without suppressing valid discussion. The parties were very collaborative and colleagial (yep, even without formal “partnering”!) and that made this process work out so well.
The project was at UCLA in the early 1980’s and this format was adopted at that time by the University for all of its projects. Lucky guess on my part regarding the format and procedures. I have no idea if it has continued.
(This was not a project without major problems. Winter rains washed out the end of one of building sites, resulting in about $120k (1982 dollars) of additional grading costs and a 63 day extension of the contract completion date. Yet, the de facto partnering plus a substantial change order to accelerate construction resulted not only in making up the time but delivering half of the project 4-months earlier than the original completion date and the other half 6-weeks early, yielding student housing rents for the University that more than made up for the additional costs.)
To make this appropriate to this discussion thread, the meetings involved all aspects of the project, including architectural, landscape architecture and civil, structural, plumbing, HVAC and electrical engineering disciplines. Being able to converse in the languages of the various designers and trades (while not claiming to be an expert in any of them except perhaps the architectural stuff) was a great benefit. I was blessed from early in my career to be involved in CA where I learned to play nice with (most) contractors.
[plus, most of our clients have their own GCs which just makes things even more interesting.]