In March the team agreed to stop offering a small service package. In September a new colleague proposes it again, a customer asks why it is gone, and three people give three different answers. Nobody did anything wrong. The decision was made in a call, mentioned in a chat, and never written anywhere that could be found later.
This article is for the owner or operations lead of a small company who wants a light habit that stops the same questions from being argued twice. It is not a project-management system. It is one page.
Why decisions get lost
Small teams decide quickly and informally, which is a strength. The cost shows up later:
- The decision lives in a meeting, a call or a chat thread that is hard to search.
- The reason is remembered by one person, who may be away or gone.
- Nobody knows whether the decision was meant to be temporary.
- People act on different versions of it.
A log does not slow decisions down. It records the ones that matter, after they are made.
What counts as a decision worth logging
Not every choice needs an entry. Log a decision when at least one of these is true:
- It changes how the team works, sells, prices or serves customers.
- It commits money or time beyond a small, agreed amount.
- It would be awkward to explain to a new colleague without a story.
- You expect someone to ask "why did we do it this way?" later.
If you are unsure, write it. A short entry costs two minutes; a lost reason can cost an afternoon of argument.
Five fields
Keep the entry to five fields. More than that and people stop writing.
- The decision. One sentence in plain words: "We stop selling the small package from 1 April."
- The reason. One or two sentences: what you knew at the time, and what you chose over. "It took as long to deliver as the larger one and brought few repeat orders."
- The owner. The person who makes sure it happens, not everyone who attended.
- The date. When it was decided, and when it takes effect if that differs.
- The review date. When you will look at it again, or "none - permanent". This field is the one most teams skip, and the one that makes the log useful.
If you want to go deeper on one decision, our article on a one-page decision record covers the single-decision format. The log described here is the shelf those records sit on.
Who writes it
One person writes each entry, within a working day of the decision. Usually that is the owner of the decision, or whoever ran the meeting. Two rules keep this working:
- Write the decision, not the meeting. Skip who said what. Someone reading the entry in a year needs the outcome and the reason.
- Ask for a check, not a rewrite. After posting, the writer asks the others to reply only if something is wrong. Silence for two days means agreed.
Rotating the writer week by week works in teams of five or more. In a very small team, give the job to one person so entries stay consistent.
Where to keep it
The best place is the one your team already opens every day. A shared document with a table, a spreadsheet, a page in your team wiki or a pinned note in your task tool are all fine. Choose by three tests:
- One place. Not one per project, one per person or one per tool.
- Searchable. You can find "package" or "price" in a few seconds.
- Newest first. Recent decisions are the ones people ask about.
A simple layout is one row per decision, with the five fields as columns and a sixth for status: active, changed or closed. If a decision is replaced, do not delete the old row. Mark it changed and link to the new one, so the history stays readable.
How to find a decision later
A log is only useful if people look in it. Three small habits help:
- Use the same words. Put the topic in the decision sentence: price, supplier, hiring, tools, customers.
- Link, don't copy. If a long discussion exists, link to it from the entry rather than pasting it.
- Point to it. When someone asks "why do we do this?", answer with a link to the entry. After a few weeks people check it first.
The quarterly look back
Once a quarter, put 20 minutes in the calendar and go through the log with the team. For each active decision whose review date has passed, ask three questions:
- Is the reason still true?
- Did the decision do what we wanted?
- Should we keep it, change it or close it?
Update the status and set a new review date, or write "permanent". Decisions that nobody can explain any more are a useful finding on their own: either the reason was never written down, or the decision no longer matters and can be closed.
This also connects to your written procedures. If a decision changes how work is done, update the relevant procedure too. Our article on keeping standard operating procedures alive shows a light way to do that.
Common mistakes
- Logging everything. The log fills with small choices and the important ones vanish. Use the test above.
- Writing a story. Long entries are not read. Keep to the five fields.
- No owner. An entry without an owner is a wish.
- No review date. Temporary decisions quietly become permanent.
- Keeping it somewhere private. A log in one person's notes is a memory with extra steps.
A short plan for this week
- Choose the place and create the table with the five fields and a status column.
- Write down the last three decisions your team made, even from memory.
- Name who writes entries and agree on the one-day rule.
- Put the first quarterly look back in the calendar.
- At the next meeting, ask at the end: "What did we decide, and who is writing it down?"
You do not need special software. A page, a few honest sentences and a quarterly habit are enough to make your team's decisions easy to find, easy to explain and easy to change.
Sources
- Practical guidance based on common small-business operations practice, offered as a planning aid. The fields, timings and review rhythm are illustrations to adapt to your own team and tools. The example decisions are invented for illustration. No client results or performance figures are claimed in this article.
