Keep a Decision Log Everyone Trusts
Bain found a 95% correlation between strong decisions and results. A decision log keeps each decision, its reason and its owner on record.
Alexander Kiel
Business Analyst · Banking & Wealth Management
29.05.2025 · 7 MIN READ · PMO SUPPORT
ON THIS PAGE
1. Define What Counts as a Decision
2. Set Up the Decision Log Template
3. Name One Decider per Entry
4. Record the Decision the Same Day
5. Link Decisions to Risks and Actions
6. Keep Superseded Decisions Visible
Sample case: Spotify
In short
FAQ
Programmes rarely run short of decisions. They run short of a record of them. A Bain & Company survey of almost 800 companies found a 95 percent correlation between excelling at making and executing key decisions and financial results. A decision log is how a programme keeps those decisions: one register of what was decided, why, by whom and when.
Banking supervisors expect the same discipline at the top. The Basel Committee's corporate governance principles state that the board should maintain appropriate records of its deliberations and decisions, including dissenting opinions. The ECB's 2024 draft guide on governance adds that good minutes include follow-up points, actions or requests.
A steering committee that cannot show its past decisions ends up taking them again. Could your team say today who approved the last change to scope and on what grounds?
STEP 1
Define What Counts as a Decision
A decision log fails when it holds everything or nothing. Log the decisions that change scope, budget, timeline, design, client impact or accepted risk. Routine agreements on tasks belong in the action log instead.
Jeff Bezos drew a useful line in his 2015 letter to shareholders. Some decisions are consequential and irreversible or nearly irreversible, one-way doors that need care and consultation. Most are two-way doors that can be reversed. Spotify adds a warning about the rest: enough small decisions can compound into a future problem, so log a small decision when other teams will build on it.
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Log every decision that changes scope, budget, timeline or risk
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Keep tasks and to-dos in the action log instead
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Record small decisions that other teams will build on
Which decision from last month's steering committee would your team struggle to find today?
Keep in mind: A decision log with hundreds of trivial entries goes unread. Agree the threshold with the steering committee at the start.
STEP 2
Set Up the Decision Log Template
Give every entry the same fields, so a reader can compare decisions months later. A practical decision log template holds an ID, the date, the decision in one sentence, the context and options considered, the decider, the linked items and a status.
The structure comes from software teams. In 2011 Michael Nygard proposed recording each architecture decision with a title, context, decision, status and consequences. A GOV.UK publishing team adopted these decision records in 2017, following his approach. The same fields work just as well for a bank integration programme.
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Give each decision its own numbered entry
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Write the decision itself in one sentence
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Record the rejected options and the reason for rejecting them
Could a new team member understand your last logged decision without asking anyone?
Keep in mind: Long free-text entries hide the decision. Put the decision first and keep the background to a few lines.
STEP 3
Name One Decider per Entry
Every entry in the decision log names one person or body that made the decision. It also notes who gave input and who disagreed. Without a named decider, the log records opinions rather than decisions.
Bain's RAPID model separates the people who recommend, agree, perform and give input from the person who decides. Bain states that there should only be one decider for each decision. The ECB draft guide expects minutes that allow an understanding of different views brought up when topics are discussed, so record dissent next to the decision it concerns.
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Name one decider for every entry
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List who gave input before the decision was taken
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Record dissenting views in the same entry
Does every decision in your log show one name or one body in the decider column?
Keep in mind: "Steering committee" is a valid decider only when the committee itself agreed. Otherwise name the person who signed off.
STEP 4
Record the Decision the Same Day
Write the decision log entry during the meeting or on the same day. Read the wording back before the meeting closes, so the decider can confirm it. An entry written a week later records what people remember, not what was agreed. What has worked best for me is a simple structure everyone understands and that grows with the project, so the team has one place of reference.
Memory fades quickly. In 2015 Jaap Murre and Joeri Dros replicated the forgetting curve that Hermann Ebbinghaus first measured in 1880, in which most of the loss happens within the first day. A well-written decision paper makes the entry easy. My article on the one-page decision paper shows how to state the decision so that it can go into the log word for word.
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Read each decision back before the meeting ends
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Publish the updated decision log within 24 hours
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Ask the decider to confirm the wording in writing
How many days pass in your programme between a decision and its entry in the log?
Keep in mind: The minutes and the decision log must say the same thing. When they differ, correct both at once.
STEP 5
Link Decisions to Risks and Actions
A decision rarely stands alone. A decision closes an issue, accepts a risk, confirms an assumption or creates new actions. Give each entry the IDs of the RAID items and actions it touches, so the decision log and the RAID log tell one story.
The UK government's project delivery standard states that change requests should be recorded, identified and defined and that risks and issues are monitored to resolution and closed when no longer valid. Go or no-go decisions belong in the log as well, with the evidence behind them, as my article on the operational readiness check describes.
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Add the related RAID item IDs to every entry
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Create an action with an owner and a date for each decision
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Close the issue in the RAID log once the decision is taken
Can your team trace each accepted risk in the RAID log back to a logged decision?
Keep in mind: An accepted risk without a logged decision has no clear owner. Auditors and supervisors will ask who accepted it.
STEP 6
Keep Superseded Decisions Visible
Decisions change. When a decision is reversed, add a new entry and mark the old one as superseded, with a link between the two. Never delete or overwrite an entry, because the full history is what makes a decision log trusted.
Nygard set the same rule for decision records: if a decision is reversed, keep the old one but mark it as superseded. He warns that without the reasoning, newcomers either blindly accept a past decision or blindly change it. In a bank, the record also serves the supervisor. The Basel Committee expects board records to be made available to the supervisor when required.
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Mark replaced decisions as superseded and never delete them
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Link each new decision to the one it replaces
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Review open and superseded entries at every steering committee
If an auditor asked tomorrow, could your team show why a past decision was reversed?
Keep in mind: A decision log that can be edited without a trace loses its value as evidence. Restrict editing rights and keep a version history.
Thinking in Bets | Annie Duke (Co-founder @ Alliance for Decision Education)
SAMPLE CASE
Spotify
Spotify's engineering teams found that decisions nobody wrote down came back as problems. Engineer Josef Blake noted that undocumented decisions often led to duplicated effort or competing solutions, such as two third-party libraries doing the same job. In April 2020 he described the fix the teams use: the architecture decision record, a document that captures a decision, including the context of how the decision was made.
Blake's answer to when a team should write one is short: almost always. For changes with a large impact, such as one that would break an API, engineers first agree the solution through a request for comments. They then capture the agreed solution in a decision record.
Spotify reports three results. New team members read the history of decisions and get up to speed quickly. New owners of a system see how and why its architecture evolved. Teams also find it easier to align on best practices across Spotify.
Key takeaway: A decision record takes minutes to write and saves weeks of repeated debate. A bank programme that logs every material decision gives new staff, owners and auditors the same answer to why.
"When should I write an Architecture Decision Record? Almost always!"
Josef Blake (Engineer @ Spotify)
In Short
A decision log turns steering committee outcomes into a record the whole programme can rely on. Define what counts as a decision, use one template, name one decider, record each entry the same day, link it to risks and actions and keep superseded entries visible.
The result is fewer repeated debates, faster onboarding of new team members and a ready answer when an auditor or supervisor asks who decided what and why.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a decision log in project management?
A decision log is a register of the material decisions taken in a project or programme. Each entry records what was decided, the context, the options considered, who decided, when and what follows from the decision. Steering committees, project managers and auditors use it to find past decisions quickly and to avoid reopening questions that were already settled.
What is the difference between a decision log and a RAID log?
A RAID log tracks risks, assumptions, issues and dependencies that are still open or being managed. A decision log records choices that have already been made. The two are closely linked, because a decision often closes an issue, accepts a risk or confirms an assumption. Many programmes keep the decision log as a separate tab next to the RAID log.
Who should own the decision log?
The PMO or the project manager usually owns the decision log and keeps it current. Each decision itself stays with the person or body that made it. The log owner records entries during meetings, asks deciders to confirm the wording and reports open follow-up actions to the steering committee. Read access should be wide, while editing rights should stay narrow.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alexander Kiel
Business Analyst for process optimisation, data migration, business integration and project support in banking and wealth management. Lean Six Sigma Green Belt and Certified Scrum Master. Former private banking front office, with front-to-back experience from client advisory to data and systems.
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