Decision Logs
Posted July 17th, 2008 by Technology
Print this pageby Catya Belfer-Shevett
A group wrote me recently asking about the Mosaic Commons Decision Log, which is a custom tool one of our folks put together. It has some features I like - it's searchable, you can mark decisions as important/not or obsolete/not, it identifies the relevant team, etc.
For Sawyer Hill (the umbrella entity for Mosaic Commons and Camelot Cohousing), we're using a simple google document with a dated list. For its purpose, that's totally fine.
What do you use? What features about it do you like, or do you wish you had that you don't have?
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Decision Log
We have a very basic decision log at New Brighton Cohousing. We recently posted it in our backpackit site, so that no one would have to try to hunt up a hard copy or remember the last emailed update. I like that it is simple, and posted where we can all access it easily. The main problem we have is making sure it is updated regularly, and making sure that everyone who takes minutes at meetings remembers that they have to record all decisions.
One thing we do is that we
One thing we do is that we have a different decision log person from note taker. The note takers are just responsible for putting the decisions at the top of the minutes - the decision log maintainer then puts them in the decision log.
if possible, link to "legislative history"
In going through some old Decision Logs here, we're finding some notes difficult to understand, because they were very tied to the context at the time. In some cases, it's mysterious why the whole group was making a decision about some particular item... mostly this comes up from the development phase of the project.
It can be helpful to have somebody, perhaps somebody new who wasn't there at the time, go through an old decision log and re-create it in new terms, asking useful questions so the group can have the context.
If your minutes are online, link to the minutes for that meeting so people can see not just what was discussed, but who was at that meeting, so they know who to ask about it.