Project decision log

Register

What was decided, by whom, and — the part everyone forgets — why.

Why is a field, not a footnote

Six months on, everybody remembers that the fixture was substituted and nobody remembers what it was solving — a lead time, a code issue, a value engineering exercise, a supply problem. That is when a settled decision gets reopened, or quietly reversed by somebody who was not in the room. The rationale is the whole reason this register is worth keeping.

A decision is not a change order

A decision is a choice somebody made. A change order is a priced, numbered, signed instrument that alters what the contract says. Most decisions never become one. The ones with a cost or schedule consequence should, and this tool will not do that job: it prices nothing and authorizes nothing.

Superseded, not edited

When a later decision replaces an earlier one, the earlier one stays. It is marked superseded and the new entry says what it replaced. A register that lets somebody edit history is a register that stops being evidence — which is the difference between a log and a working document.

A record of decisions somebody made. It is not a change order and authorizes, prices and approves nothing: a decision with a cost or schedule consequence becomes a change order, which is a separate document with a number and a signature. Everything runs on your device.

Questions people ask

Why record the reasoning and not just the decision?
Because the decision is the part everyone remembers and the reasoning is the part that vanishes. Six months later somebody asks why the specified fixture was substituted, nobody can say, and the decision gets reopened or quietly reversed by somebody who never knew what it was solving. The rationale field is why this register is worth keeping at all.
Is a decision the same as a change order?
No, and confusing them is expensive. A decision is a choice somebody made. A change order is a priced, numbered, signed instrument that alters the contract. Many decisions have no cost consequence and never become one; those that do should be raised as a change order, which is a separate tool here.
What does 'superseded' mean?
That a later decision replaced this one. The original stays exactly where it was rather than being edited, because the history of how a project got to its current position is the thing a decision log exists to preserve. Editing history and calling it a log is how a register stops being evidence.
Can a decision be recorded before it is made?
Yes — that is what Proposed is for. Somebody starts the entry before the meeting so the question is written down properly, and the decision and the reasoning are filled in when it is made. What matters is that the entry exists while the discussion is fresh.