Last time, three people said yes.
Two days later, they remembered three different versions of what that yes meant.
So we turned the conversation into a decision record.
That fixed one problem.
But it exposed another:
A decision isn’t just the thing everyone agreed to.
It’s also who owns it, when it happens, and whether anyone disagreed along the way.
We tend to treat the end of a meeting as the end of the decision.
Everyone agrees.
Meeting over.
Move on.
If those details aren’t captured, the decision can start changing the moment everyone leaves the room.
Not because anyone changed their mind.
Because everyone remembered something slightly different.
The useful move wasn’t writing longer meeting notes.
It was creating one short record of the decision while the conversation was still fresh.
That gave everyone something to check.
If the record was wrong, someone could correct it.
If the owner was missing, someone could name one.
If the deadline was unclear, the team could resolve it.
If there was disagreement, it could be recorded instead of disappearing.
The record became the shared version of what happened.
