Meetings That Should've Had an Email

“This meeting should’ve been an email.” But what about the meetings that needed an email?

I can’t count the number of times I’ve participated in a meeting where the meeting happens and… that’s it. That’s the deliverable.

No agenda. No recap. No action items. No record that the meeting happened other than a calendar block and, maybe, a recording no one will ever watch, or a transcript someone might dig through later, trying to find what could’ve been documented from the outset.

There are plenty of reasons for this. No one owns the meeting. Cultural or procedural norms don’t require documentation. Everyone feels like there is no time. But no documentation means no ownership. And no ownership usually means no outcome.

MEETINGS ARE NOT STANDALONE DELIVERABLES. They’re just people talking.

Without a record, there is no shared plan. People forget who owns what, what was decided, what information was shared, and what timeline the team is actually working against

You’re either meeting around planning, progress, and strategy, or you’re meeting to review outcomes. These are project checkpoints. They are not the project itself. And both deserve documentation.

Maybe it’s the former municipal clerk in me, but the more I think about where things go wrong, the more I come back to documentation, ownership, and project management principles.

Every 👏 single 👏 thing 👏 we 👏 do 👏 is 👏 project 👏 management👏. (Yes, this is a controversial statement, and no, I have not yet seen a scenario that proves me wrong). Every email reply. Every Teams message. Every meeting no one will remember for the reasons you want them to. Even these small actions contribute to decisions, dependencies, and next steps.

That work may not be a multi-million dollar infrastructure project or a year-long SaaS implementation, but the same principles still apply. Project management practices are valuable because they help keep work visible, accountable, and moving. The meeting should FACILITATE the deliverables.

I get that people are busy. Preparing for meetings takes time. Documenting discussions and outcomes takes more time. But the lack of documentation is contributing to the time crunch. Without it, you get more meetings, more confusion, more status-check emails, more time spent reconstructing decisions, and more missed or delayed deliverables.

So if you’re drowning in meetings, start by documenting the ones you already have. A little structure at the beginning saves a lot of cleanup later.