In short
A decision log is a single list of the decisions a team has made: what was decided, when, by whom, and which meeting it came from.
It exists because decisions get made in meetings, and meeting notes get filed by date, so three months later nobody can find the one line that says "we agreed to drop the Windows version". A log turns that line into something anyone can find in a minute.
This guide covers what an entry needs, a template, how to keep the log alive, and how to connect each decision to the meeting it came from.
What counts as a decision
A decision is a choice that closes off other options and that someone will act on. "We will launch in two phases" is a decision. "We discussed the launch" is not. Neither is an action item ("Tom to draft the plan"), though decisions often produce action items.
Useful tests:
- Would someone act differently if they did not know about it? If yes, log it.
- Would someone later ask "why did we do it this way?" If yes, log it, with the reason.
- Did it change an earlier decision? Always log it, and link the old one.
Small, reversible choices ("we'll meet on Tuesdays") usually do not need an entry. When in doubt, log it; an extra line costs little, and a missing one costs an argument.
What each entry needs
Keep entries short. The log is an index into your meetings, not a replacement for them.
- ID — a number, so entries can refer to each other ("supersedes D-014").
- Date — when it was made.
- Decision — one sentence, stated as the decision itself.
- Who decided — a person or a named group, not "the team".
- Why — one or two lines. The reason is what stops the decision being reopened by the next person who did not hear it.
- Source — the meeting it came from, with a link to the notes and, if you have one, the moment in the recording.
- Status — active, superseded (by which entry), or reversed.
The template
A table works for a short log; a list works better once entries need more than a line of reasoning.
# Decision log — [team or project]
Owner: [name]
| ID | Date | Decision | Who decided | Why | Source | Status |
| ----- | ---- | -------- | ----------- | --- | ------ | ------ |
| D-001 | | | | | | Active |## D-[number]: [the decision in one sentence]
- Date: [date]
- Decided by: [name / group]
- Why: [one or two lines]
- Options considered: [the main alternatives, briefly]
- Source: [meeting title, date, link to notes; timestamp if recorded]
- Status: [Active / Superseded by D-xxx / Reversed on date]A fictional example
Harbour and Northwind are invented; so are the people.
| ID | Date | Decision | Who decided | Why | Source | Status |
| ----- | ----------- | ---------------------------------------- | ----------- | ------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------- | ---------------- |
| D-012 | 3 Sep 2026 | Harbour 2.4 ships without offline mode | Ana Ruiz | Sync rewrite not ready; Northwind does not need it for launch | Planning, 3 Sep, 14:20 | Active |
| D-013 | 10 Sep 2026 | Launch price holds for the first quarter | Priya Shah | Annual plan data not in yet | Pricing review, 10 Sep, 00:12 | Active |
| D-014 | 17 Sep 2026 | Pricing page shows monthly prices first | Marc Dubois | Sales quote monthly | Northwind call, 17 Sep | Supersedes D-009 |Getting decisions into the log
The log fails in one way: nobody adds to it. These habits prevent that.
Say it in the meeting. When a decision is made, whoever is chairing says it back: "So we're deciding X — Ana's call, because Y." That sentence is the log entry, and saying it out loud also catches the moments when people thought they had agreed different things.
Make "Decisions" the first section of your notes. The meeting notes template puts decisions at the top for this reason. Copying from the notes to the log then takes a minute.
Log within a day. One person — the log's owner — moves decisions from that day's notes into the log. Waiting a week means reconstructing from memory.
Log decisions made outside meetings too. A decision agreed in a chat thread or an email is just as binding. Note the source.
Review the log briefly. Once a month or at the start of each project phase, read the active entries. Anything that is no longer true should be marked superseded with a new entry explaining what replaced it.
Link every decision to its source
The "Source" column is what makes a log trustworthy. When someone disputes an entry ("I never agreed to that"), the answer is in the notes or the recording, and the link gets you there without a search.
If the meeting was recorded with everyone's agreement, add the time in the recording. The difference between "Pricing review, 10 September" and "Pricing review, 10 September, 00:12" is the difference between finding the moment and listening to half an hour of audio. Building a searchable archive of your meetings covers the other half of this: making sure the meeting a decision points to can still be found and played.
Where to keep it
Anywhere the team already looks: a page in your wiki, a pinned document, a file in the project repository. What matters is that there is one log per team or project, it has one owner, and everyone knows where it is. A log spread across three tools is three partial logs.
For product teams, the decision log is often the most useful artefact after the roadmap itself — see meeting notes for product managers. And because decisions often create work, the entries tend to sit alongside action items in the same notes.
Finding decisions in past meetings with Notey
When a decision was made in a recorded meeting, Notey can help you fill in the log afterwards. Its Minutes note lists what was discussed and decided, topic by topic, each marked with where it began in the recording and each agreement called out. Ask Notey answers questions about one meeting from its transcript — "What did we decide about the launch price?" — and says so when the transcript does not cover it. Both are labelled as AI-generated, so check the decision against the transcript before logging it.
To find the meeting in the first place, search every meeting by what was said or by time with ⌘K, then click the matching line's timestamp to hear the moment. That timestamp is the one to put in the Source column. Recording, transcription and search all run on your Mac with no account.
Checklist
- One log per team or project, with one owner.
- Each entry: ID, date, decision, who, why, source, status.
- Decisions said out loud in the meeting and put first in the notes.
- Logged within a day.
- Old entries superseded, not deleted.
- Every entry linked to its meeting, and to the moment where you have it.
Frequently asked questions
What is a decision log?
A running list of decisions a team or project has made, one line each, with the date, who made it, what it was, and where it came from. It lets anyone find out what was decided without reading every set of meeting notes.
What is the difference between a decision log and meeting minutes?
Minutes record one meeting in order. A decision log collects decisions across many meetings, and other places decisions get made, into one list that is easy to search.
Who should keep the decision log?
One named person per team or project. Anyone can propose an entry, but a single owner keeps the wording consistent and notices when a new decision replaces an old one.
Should I log decisions that were later reversed?
Yes. Mark the old entry as superseded and link it to the new one, rather than deleting it. Knowing a decision was made and then changed is often exactly what someone needs to find later.