How Do You Run a Decision Log?

Why keep a decision log

Memory rewrites history. A month after a decision, people remember the reasoning that matches the outcome, not the reasoning they actually used. A log captures the thinking before the result is known, so you can judge the decision on its merits instead of its luck.

It also solves a quieter problem: new team members can see why things are the way they are, instead of reopening settled questions.

A simple template

Keep each entry short enough to write in five minutes. If it takes longer, nobody will keep it up.

1. Date and owner: who made the call and when.
2. Decision: one sentence.
3. Options considered: the two or three real alternatives.
4. Reasoning: the main reason, plus what you knew and didn't know.
5. Kill criteria: the result that would make you reverse it.
6. Review date: when you'll check.

Which decisions to log

Not every choice. Log decisions that are expensive to reverse, that affect more than one team, or that people will ask about later. A good rule: if you'd have to explain it in a meeting six months from now, log it today.

Skip routine calls. A log full of trivia gets ignored, and then the important entries get ignored with it.

Making the review stick

Put the review date on a calendar the moment you write the entry. When it arrives, answer three questions: what happened, did the kill criteria trigger, and what would we do differently with the same information?

That last question matters. It separates a bad decision from a good decision with a bad outcome, which is the whole point of keeping the log.