Action Items

Abstract: An action item is a documented activity, event, or task. Action items are discrete entities that can be dealt with by a single person.

Action items are typically created during a discussion by a group of people such as a project team who are meeting about one or more topics and during the discussion it is discovered that some kind of action is needed. The act required is then documented as an action item and usually assigned to someone, such as a member of the group. The person to whom the action is assigned is then obligated to perform the action and report back to the group on the results.

Action items are usually documented in the meeting minutes and are recorded in the task list of the group. As people complete action items, the items are documented as being completed and the item is removed from the list of outstanding action items.

A usual format for an action item is to record an action item number, the date when the action item is identified or created, the name of the person to whom the action is assigned, a title description of the action, and a more detailed description of the action and its outcomes. The action item number may be the date of the meeting followed by a sequence number with each action item for that date being assigned a unique sequence number. For instance, a meeting held on September 03, 2008 may generate three action items whose identifying numbers would be 2008090301, 2008090302, and 2008090303 using a YYYY (year), MM (month), DD (day), NN (sequence number) format.

An action item can be considered a more general form of various types of action/issue/defect tracking methods.

Keywords: Tools and Templates