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Record a decision

Mode: how-to. The Decisions register is the log of governance decisions taken on an investment. This guide covers logging one, taking a pending one, and correcting a decision after the fact.

Before you start

Section titled “Before you start”
  • You need edit rights on the project.
  • Nobody approves a decision in Tollgate. A decision is a record of something people decided; the register captures it, it does not adjudicate it.
  • Once a decision has a date, it is a record. You correct it with a note, never by editing it away.

Log a decision

Section titled “Log a decision”
  1. Open the project’s Tollgate tab and select Decisions.
  2. Choose Record decision.
  3. Decision — the choice that was taken, in a line. Required.
  4. Decision notes — what it covers, and anything a reader needs to understand it.
  5. Made on — the date it was taken. Leave it empty if the decision has not been taken yet.
  6. Made by — who took it, and is accountable for it. There is no default: an unnamed maker reads as a dash until someone names them.
  7. Evidence — links to what the decision rests on: the board paper, the analysis, the Confluence page.
  8. Save.

The register records who made the decision and, separately, who added it. They are usually the same person and sometimes not, which is the point of keeping both.

Take a pending decision

Section titled “Take a pending decision”

A decision with no Made on date is Pending. Pending decisions sort to the top of the register until you sort by another column, and they are what the “N pending” count on the Decisions tab is counting.

Log a pending decision when the question is settled enough to write down but the call has not been made — before a steerco, say. Then, once it has been taken:

  1. Find the pending decision and choose Edit.
  2. Fill in Made on and Made by.
  3. Save.

That is the moment it becomes a made decision, and the audit trail records it as one.

You can edit a pending decision’s text, notes, dates, people and evidence. You can edit nothing on a made decision.

Correct a made decision

Section titled “Correct a made decision”

A decision with a date is append-only. Open the row’s notes — the control reads Add note on a decision with none, and Notes (N) once it has some — and write the correction there. The original text stays, the note sits under it with its author and date, and a reader sees both.

Section titled “Link a decision to its context”

Two links are worth making, and the register shows both:

  • Steering minutes — where the decision was taken. Link the project’s minutes page on the decision, and the record says which meeting it came out of.
  • A risk it responds to — start from the risk. On a materialised risk in the Risks register, choose Record decision: the decision form opens already linked, and the register then shows Treats: <the risk> on the row.
Section titled “Related”