Hi everyone, I am looking for a decision-making log template. Basically, we need a good overview of what was the problem that we solved, why did we take a certain decision, who were the decision makers and who were the people informed about the decision. Our aim is to build a better institutional memory.
Do you already have any similar processes in place and how do you organize them?
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There’s a few popular decision making frameworks out there including SPADE. I think lots of folks use tools like Coda, Notion, or something similar to keep a decision log. Here are a few templates that might inspire you:
Also a great article on SPADE:
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@RisaButler, I recently saw this Tweet that Shopify maintains an internal podcast, as well as documentation, with deep context on the company history. I thought that was a really interesting medium for reflecting on decisions and sharing the history and evolution of a product and company.
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Thanks for bringing this up! I did this with my team previously. It does add some admin burden, so I’d start by keeping the template simple if you want to maximize adoption.One version could look like an Airtable with these columns:
- Decision Driver (the person who brought everyone together and drove the decision process)
- Decision Approver (if an exec or leader who isn’t the driver approved it)
- Project (create tags to filter easily in the future)
- Status (has it been decided and approved, or is it an open question)
- Question (what was the question asked-- e.g. “Should we build or buy X new sales automation capability?”
- Decision + Rationale (what was decided and why)
- Links (link to any documentation with additional assumptions, research, etc.)
What was really useful on my team was keeping a log of open decisions, in addition to documenting the ones already made. Here’s why:
- (a) A log of open decisions is a great meeting tool. PMs would be running a meeting, a question would pop up, and instead of derailing the meeting to decide on it, PMs could add it to the log and get the right group of people together later.
- (b) I and other leaders could go into the spreadsheet at any point and see all the open decisions that needed to be made. A great way to gut check that my PMs were asking the right questions / preview any decisions they needed support on.
- (c) It enforces documentation of decisions. Once a team member logs an open question, they will inevitably update the documentation once the decision is made. Good driver of adoption for your new process.
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Not a template, but check this out. it’s a doc creation tool with specific features on capturing decisions, and has nice integrations with Jira and slack.
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Love the workflow from @NaomiNwosu - we’re following a similar approach in Fable. Feel free to reach out if any questions/feedback!
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@RohitKumar,I should just cross out Airtable and write Fable 
So cool to see you guys simplifying this process and making it less burdensome for PMs!
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@Naomi, Thanks for the lovely feedback! We keep learning from wherever possible. And your comment was so fruitful and valuable. I’m sure others will definitely benefit from it. Thanks once again.
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Take a look at this, This might help.
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Thank you so much, everyone! All resources are super helpful. Especially @NaomiNwosu.