The Job of the Team Recorder

The job of the recorder is to keep accurate records of team activities at the level of documentation that the team requires. Some teams want written documentation of all team discussions. Other teams only want to record and document points of agreement and/or action items. Some teams want details. Others want summaries.

When it comes to documentation, the team can generally decide how much documentation it needs. But it would be a mistake for a team to have no documentation of its activities, or documentation that is so minimal it becomes practically useless. At minimum, the recorder should maintain documentation that clearly states points of agreement and decisions, provides detailed lists of action items to be carried out including the name of the responsible team member and a target completion date, and contains sufficient information so absent team members can be brought up to date.

About me: Dan Pelley discusses the roles and responsibilities of team members as part of his "Participative Management (Building High Performance Teams)" program, one of five programs leading to a Certificate in Supervisory Management. 139 companies in Connecticut (CT), Rhode Island (RI), Massachusetts (MA) and New York have one or more people who earned this certificate.

Copyright © 2009 Daniel W. Pelley
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