---
title: "Open decision records"
description: "All mandates, role holders, and decision records are accessible to anyone in the network"
url: "/open-decision-records/"
tags: [protocol, decisions]
readingPathPosition: 27
---

# Open decision records

Part of the [Collective decision-making](/collective-decision-making.md) area.

**Accord.** All mandates, role holders, and decision records are accessible to anyone in the network. Every group that adopts this protocol maintains a logbook – a coherent, accessible record of its agreements, domain descriptions, role selections, and governance decisions. Every agreement in the logbook records: the need or driver it responds to, the decision itself, who is accountable for its implementation, evaluation criteria, and a review date. When the full [Collective decision-making](/collective-decision-making.md) cluster is adopted, these logbooks become the visible record of a [circle's](/circles-are-a-basic-unit-of-shared-governance.md) governance. This governs the relationship between those who decide and those affected by decisions, ensuring that authority is always visible and that agreements are always revisable.

**Ritual.** Shared orientation metaphors: the network and its circles develop figurative, embodied expressions of shared direction – not analytical targets but images and phrases that speak to the whole person. These keep shared purpose alive as felt commitment rather than abstract mission statement.

**Critique & Contemplation.** Regular narrative review: examine the narratives embedded in our decision-making practices. Are our processes reproducing the paradigm of separation, or enacting interconnectedness?

## Sources

- Shared orientation metaphors adapted from the motto goal process in Storch & Krause (2017), *Selbstmanagement – ressourcenorientiert*
- Logbook concept and agreement template adapted from Bockelbrink, Priest & David (2019), *Sociocracy 3.0 – A Practical Guide*
- Narrative review draws on the Organising from Elsewhere (OfE) framework

## In this vault

- Previous: [Mandate clarity](/mandate-clarity.md)
- Next: [Tending shared roles](/tending-shared-roles.md)
- Referenced by: [Circles are a basic unit of shared governance](/circles-are-a-basic-unit-of-shared-governance.md), [Collective decision-making](/collective-decision-making.md), [Information flow](/information-flow.md), [Protocols](/protocols.md)