Learning objective
By the end of this lesson, you can convert live work into an artifact that preserves the choice, rationale, uncertainty, ownership and revisit logic.
Why it matters
Notes describe what people said. An operational artifact changes what happens next. It has a user, required structure, owner and place in the workflow.
If the only output is a slide deck, photo of a wall or facilitator summary, the organisation may lose the actual decision and its limits as soon as the room disappears.
Core concept: design backward from the artifact
Define the required artifact before building the agenda. A decision record should contain:
- the exact decision and date;
- the accountable owner;
- alternatives considered;
- criteria, evidence and trade-offs behind the choice;
- material uncertainty and dissent;
- actions with owners and dates;
- a revisit condition based on an observable event or threshold.
Write the record live and display it to participants. Do not ask the facilitator to reconstruct the decision from notes days later. Review the final wording accessibly, then publish it to the people expected to act.
Visual explanation
Text alternative: discussion notes are structured live into a decision record that sends actions, uncertainty and a revisit trigger into the organisation's normal work system.
Worked example: NordForge
NordForge records B as a six-month pilot with a 30-day mobilisation check and a 90-day evidence review. The record names customer-delivery and workforce-capacity guardrails, identifies the unresolved utilisation assumption and states that enterprise expansion requires transferability evidence from both sites.
The decision record links to an Evidence Register. Implementation actions go into the normal work-management system rather than remaining hidden in the presentation.
A date is not a trigger
“Review in 30 days” says when to look. It does not say what evidence could change the choice.
A stronger condition is:
Reopen the scale decision if OTIF does not improve by two percentage points without increased expedited freight, or if either site cannot operate the new handoff rule within current capacity.
The condition connects the original rationale to observable evidence.
Common mistake
Mistake: recording only the chosen option.
Without alternatives, criteria and uncertainty, a future reader cannot tell whether changed conditions invalidate the reasoning or whether the organisation is simply relitigating preference.
Quick check
Which statement is an inspectable revisit condition?
A. “Check progress next month.”
B. “Reopen if urgent escalations remain above baseline after eight weeks or customer-delivery guardrails are breached.”
C. “Review if necessary.”
D. “The facilitator will send notes.”
Answer: B. It names observable evidence connected to the decision.
Practical prompt
Complete the Decision Log during a rehearsal. Give it to someone who was not present and ask them to explain the choice, its limits, their responsibility and the reopening condition.
Summary
- Define the artifact before the agenda.
- Write the decision record live.
- Preserve alternatives, rationale, uncertainty and dissent.
- Send actions into the normal work system.
- Use observable revisit conditions, not dates alone.
Sources
- Atlassian, Engineering handbook: DACI decisions (opens in a new tab).
- NASA, Systems Engineering Handbook (opens in a new tab), Decision Analysis Process.
Next lesson
Continue with Design the Review Before the Session Ends: test whether the artifact was used, whether the mechanism changed and whether the intended outcome moved.