Keeping a Decision Log: A Field Checklist You Can Use This Week

A decision log is a running record of the significant decisions made on a project -- what was decided, who made the decision, when it was made, what alternatives were considered, and why the chosen option was selected. It sounds simple, and it is simple, but the majority of projects do not maintain one. The consequences are predictable: disputed decisions, reinvented decisions (the same question is decided twice, often differently), and an inability to explain project history to auditors, new team members, or stakeholders who were not present when a key decision was made.

In 2022, with projects often staffed by hybrid and rotating teams and with increased scrutiny of public-sector capital project decisions, a decision log is as close to a no-cost risk mitigation tool as exists. Here is a practical checklist for implementing and maintaining one.

Setting Up Your Decision Log

• Choose a format that will actually be maintained. The best decision log format is the one that gets used. A shared spreadsheet, a page in the project management software, or a table in the project SharePoint site all work. A complex purpose-built system that nobody updates does not. Match the format to the team's existing habits.

• Define what counts as a decision worth logging. Not every micro-decision needs to be in the log; not every significant decision should be left out. Establish a threshold: decisions that commit the project to a course of action, decisions that allocate significant budget or resources, decisions that change scope or timeline, and decisions that resolve a previously unresolved issue are good candidates. Decisions about meeting times are not.

• Create a standard entry format with fields for: decision date, decision description, decision maker (name and role), options considered, rationale, any conditions or assumptions that underpin the decision, and follow-up actions required. Keep it short -- a decision log entry should take five minutes to complete, not five hours.

Maintaining Your Decision Log

• Assign a single owner responsible for ensuring the log is updated. In most projects, this is the project manager. The owner does not have to write every entry, but they are responsible for ensuring that decisions are captured promptly after they are made.

• Update the log within 24 hours of a decision being made. Decisions that are not recorded the same day or the next are often forgotten, remembered incompletely, or reconstructed from incomplete notes. The longer the delay, the less reliable the record.

• Review the decision log at each project phase gate and at project close. A phase-gate review should confirm that all decisions made during the phase are recorded, that the rationale still holds, and that any conditions or assumptions underpinning key decisions are still valid.

• Share the decision log with all project stakeholders at project initiation and whenever a new stakeholder joins. The decision log is not a confidential document. Its value is partly in creating shared understanding of why the project is set up the way it is.

• At project close, copy the decision log into the lessons-learned record. The decisions made on a project, and the reasoning behind them, are among the most valuable lessons that can be passed to future projects. Most organisations lose this knowledge when the project team disbands.

XNM provides project management advisory services to public-sector and capital-project clients, including project governance and documentation frameworks. Reach out to XNM's program & project delivery advisory team to discuss decision governance and project documentation for your project.