What is a decision log?
A decision log is a single, shared list of the decisions a team has made, with the date, the people involved, and the reasoning for each. Its job is to make past decisions findable and citable, so settled questions stay settled.
What goes in a decision log?
A useful decision log entry has five fields: the question that was being decided, the decision itself in one sentence, the date, the people involved (including anyone who disagreed), and the reasoning. Many teams add two optional fields: the options that were considered and rejected, and a revisit date. Fields beyond those reduce the chance that entries get written at all.
Where do teams keep a decision log?
Anywhere shared and searchable: a wiki page, a spreadsheet, a repository file, or dedicated software. The medium matters less than two properties: everyone knows where the log is, and writing an entry takes under two minutes. The common failure mode is not the format but the re-typing step, since entries must be written manually after the decision already happened somewhere else, typically in chat or a meeting.
How is a decision log different from a decision journal?
A decision log records what was decided for the team's collective memory. A decision journal additionally records what the decider expected to happen and how confident they were, so judgment can be scored against reality later. Logs serve findability; journals serve calibration.
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