Teams re-decide because decisions evaporate: made in a meeting, mentioned in a thread, remembered differently by everyone, and relitigated the moment someone new (or someone persistent) asks "wait, why do we…?" The decision log is the cheapest institutional memory there is — one line per decision (what, why, who, when, and the reopening rule) — but logs fail as shelf-ware unless capture is wired into existing moments (the meeting's last five minutes, the thread's landing) and retrieval becomes reflex ("checked the log?" as the first response to why-questions).
What This Skill Produces
- The format — the five-field line, with the two-sentence-why discipline and the option-we-rejected field that does the anti-relitigation work
- The capture wiring — the existing moments (decision-meeting-format closes, thread-to-decision landings, 1:1 calls) that now end with a log line
- The reopening rule — what reopens a decision (new information) and what doesn't (new mood, new people)
- The retrieval habits — the log-first reflex, the onboarding tour, the link-not-relitigate response
Required Inputs
Ask for these if not provided:
- Where decisions currently happen — the meetings, threads, and hallways; capture wires into real venues, and unwired venues keep leaking
- The platform — a doc, a wiki page, a database/table; sortable-and-searchable beats beautiful, and the log lives where the team already looks
- The scope line — which decisions get logged (the test: would someone plausibly ask "why" in six months?) vs. the operational micro-calls that don't; over-logging kills the habit as surely as under-logging kills the value
- The relitigation history — the decisions that keep reopening; they get back-filled first, because they're the demonstration
Framework: The Log Rules
- The line is five fields and stays a line: date · decision (one sentence, the what) · why (two sentences max, including the rejected alternative: "chose X over Y because Z") · decider · reopening trigger. The rejected-alternative clause is the anti-relitigation payload — "we considered that and here's why not" is the sentence that ends the third rehash.
- Capture rides existing rituals: the decision meeting's on-screen close writes the line · the thread landing's record is the line · the weekly's "any decisions this week?" sweeps the strays. New ceremony fails; hitching to existing ceremony sticks. One person per venue owns the write (the facilitator, the thread-lander).
- The reopening rule is stated per decision: default — "reopens on new information, not new preferences" — with specific triggers where known ("revisit if churn exceeds X"). This converts "can we talk about this again?" from a social negotiation into a rule lookup, which is the log's quiet superpower.
- Retrieval is the ROI moment: the why-question response becomes a link ("logged here — short version: chose X over Y for Z"), the onboarding tour includes the log's greatest hits, and decisions cite prior decisions ("consistent with #47"). A log that's written but never linked is a diary; the link habit is what compounds.
- Back-fill the greatest hits only: the 10–15 decisions people actually re-ask about get retro-logged (best-effort whys, marked as reconstructed) — full historical back-fill is archaeology that delays the living log. Forward capture from today; history only where it's actively bleeding.
Output Format
Decision Log: [team] — lives at [location]The Format
| Date | Decision | Why (incl. rejected alt.) | Decider | Reopens if |
|---|
Capture Wiring
[Venue → moment → who writes the line · the weekly sweep as the catch-all]
The Reopening Rule
[The default · how specific triggers get set · the link-instead-of-debate response]
Retrieval Habits
[The why-question → link reflex · onboarding's greatest-hits tour · the back-fill list (10–15, marked reconstructed)]
Quality Checks
- Every field fits the one-line discipline; whys include the rejected alternative
- Capture is attached to named existing moments with named writers
- The reopening default is stated and per-decision triggers are possible
- The link-first response habit has been demonstrated on a real why-question
- Back-fill stopped at the greatest hits
Anti-Patterns
- Do not log without the rejected alternative — "we chose X" without "over Y because Z" relitigates fine
- Do not build capture as new ceremony — hitch to rituals that already happen
- Do not log everything — the six-month-why test keeps the log readable and the habit light
- Do not let new-people-energy reopen settled calls — the rule distinguishes information from mood
- Do not write and never link — retrieval is where the log earns; capture alone is journaling