THE REGISTER
A verdict that is not written down is an opinion.
Every poll produces decision records. Every record goes on the register: numbered, dated, minuted, held. The register is what makes the discipline real: it is the difference between a meeting and a ruling, and over time it becomes the institutional memory your portfolio decisions draw on.
№ 01 · SPECIMEN · WHAT A DECISION RECORD CONTAINS
- initiative
- dynamic pricing pilot, phase two
- sponsor
- chief commercial officer
- polled
- quarterly portfolio poll
- rule invoked
- 06 · no attributable value path inside 12 months
Phase two does not proceed. The workflow remains a candidate for reframing under rule 03 at the next poll.
- capital returned
- uncommitted spend, next financial year
- attention returned
- two senior engineers, to the highest-ruled go on the register
Note what a scrub records: not failure, but return. The capital and attention released are named, and where they go next is on the record. A scrub is the rules working.
№ 02 · WE POLL OUR OWN PORTFOLIO
The discipline applies to us first. Our studio ventures sit on our own register, ruled on at the same cadence we sell. The extract below is honest: the numbering begins when the first real poll is minuted, and no verdict appears here before it exists on the record.
№ 03 · WHY THE RECORD MATTERS
Records compound. Each ruling cites the rules and the records before it, and the register becomes harder to argue with than any individual in the room.
4.2Records travel. A decision record is built to sit in a board pack, between the audit committee paper and the CFO's forecast, and be understood without explanation.
4.3Records protect the go. When a commitment is on the record with its kill condition named, it is safe from the quiet re-litigation that stalls most initiatives after quarter one.