How to track decisions across meetings and documents

Ada approved September 22 at the September 10 meeting because the security review needed another week. That's the latest approval I found. I haven't found anything confirming that the pilot launched.

You can take that answer back to the project owner, or open the September 10 transcript and check it yourself. You also know what still needs an answer: did the launch happen?

An old plan might be sitting in one folder while a later approval is buried in a meeting. A search for the launch date could find either one. You need to know which came last.

Ask "What did we decide about the pilot launch, and why?" That keeps the search on the date and the reasons people gave for choosing it. A summary of every meeting would leave you to pick those details out again.

For a text search, try the project's old name too. People may have called the launch a pilot or rollout. Once you find a promising passage in a long transcript, read a little further. Someone might suggest a date and have it ruled out five minutes later.

Give an AI tool the same question when you ask it to analyze multiple meeting transcripts. Ask for the passages behind its answer, and check whether someone agreed to the plan or merely floated it. Then ask:

Where did we agree to that? Did any later meeting or document change it?

You may find that the decision held, or that someone changed it in a follow-up conversation. Sometimes you just can't tell. If a search turns up nothing, widen the date range or try another phrase before concluding the discussion wasn't recorded.

In our example, you first find an August meeting and the documents that followed it. At this point, you could write:

Ada moved the pilot to September 15 because the vendor integration was delayed. Her August 13 email confirms it, and the August 14 plan has the same date. I still need to check for later updates.

Ada's email confirms the date, and someone has put it into the plan. Unless another discussion bears on the launch, you can stop reading that week's notes and move on to later meetings.

Then you find the September 10 meeting. Ada says: "Security review needs another week. I approve September 22 instead of September 15." Now you have a later date, with a different reason. The vendor delay explains the August decision; the security review explains the September one.

If someone asks how you got here, look back at July. Ada originally approved August 18, provided the vendor integration was ready. Put those decisions together and the history is easy to follow:

You only need this table if the earlier decisions matter to the question. If someone wants the current approved date, you can give them September 22 and the meeting where Ada approved it.

You might also want to compare the plan with outside research. Suppose, still in this fictional example, you find a report published on September 20 recommending independent security reviews for pilots. It may help you decide what to do now. It can't tell you why Ada chose a date in July. Keep later research separate from the reasons people gave at the time.

Say the July 10 plan was re-exported on September 12. It still says August 18. Sorting the folder by newest file puts it near the top, even though Ada has changed the date twice since she approved that plan. Open it and compare the version with the August email and September meeting.

Be just as careful with the reason. In the August 12 meeting, Ben says, "Security review is still open. We need to check it before launch." But Ada says she's moving the date because of the vendor delay. If your summary says "the launch moved because of security," you've joined two remarks that weren't making the same point.

And an approved launch date doesn't tell you whether anyone shipped. For that, you'll need a release record or a message confirming the launch. Until you find one, leave the question open.

You don't have to force an answer when the records are thin. Write "I couldn't find a later update" if that's where you got to. If two records disagree, keep both passages so someone can resolve the disagreement. Neither result proves that the decision never changed.

If work is waiting on the answer, send the excerpts to the person who can confirm it. Ask "Which date did we approve?" They can answer that without retelling three months of meetings.

That helps when a written plan contains the outcome but the reason was said out loud, perhaps halfway through a long meeting. Start with:

What did we decide about [topic], and why? Look through my captured conversations about [project name or approximate period]. Keep suggestions separate from decisions we agreed to. Show the passages and dates behind your answer where available, and tell me what you couldn't find.

Then follow up:

Did any later captured conversation confirm or change that decision? If it changed, what reason did people give? Tell me if you can't find a later update.

Open the transcript in the web app and read around the passage. Check the date and who's speaking before you say someone approved something. Once you've checked it, put the answer in your project document alongside any email or plan you looked up separately.

If you keep asking about the same project, save the request as a Skill:

When I run this Skill, check newly captured conversations about [topic] for decisions and updates. Include the reasons people gave. Keep suggestions separate from approvals, and flag anything I should check in the transcript.

Skills can run on demand, on a schedule or when a situation is detected; situation detection is best effort. Try running it yourself first and adjust the request to get what you need. Chat can also look up public information using your captured context; keep that research separate from the original discussion.

These prompts haven't been tested on this example. They need conversations you've already captured, and the answers need checking. For private emails and documents, use the apps where you keep them; this walkthrough doesn't assume Pastok can retrieve them.

You can start a decision log from meeting notes with a small record like this:

When a later conversation changes the plan, add it with its date. Leave the earlier reason attached to the earlier decision, so someone reading it later can see why people made each choice.

Try it with one question you keep having to look up. Save the answer beside the passage that convinced you. Next time it comes up, you'll know where to look.