<aside> ✋ Copilot decision log. Every rollout makes decisions about Copilot. Almost none of them get written down, so a few months later nobody can say who allowed the thing that is now a problem, or why the thing that was blocked is still blocked.

</aside>

Duplicate this page into your own workspace and delete the example rows. They are here to show the shape, not to be your answers.

The fields that make a row worth keeping

• Decision. What was actually decided, in one line a stranger can read without being in the meeting.
• Verdict. Allowed, allowed with conditions, or blocked. Allowed with conditions is the honest answer most of the time, and the conditions are the decision.
• Decided by. A person. Not a committee, not a meeting, not the policy. If no name goes in, nothing was decided.
• Why. The reason in the words used at the time. This is the only field that still helps you after the person has moved on.
• Revisit. A date. Microsoft changes this product most weeks, so a decision with no revisit date is a decision that quietly stops being true.

Applies to is optional and it matters more than it looks. A decision for Finance is not a decision for everybody, and a log that does not say who it covers gets quoted at the wrong people.

Decision log

The last row is not a decision

It is in the log on purpose. "We will be careful with confidential data" has no owner, no verdict and nothing to check, so nobody can act on it and nobody can audit it. A log full of sentiments reads like governance and holds nothing. If a row has no name in it, it is not finished.

Before you hand this to anybody

<aside> ✋ AI prepares, humans decide. Nothing in this log authorises safety work. A permit to work, a lockout, a confined-space entry, a job safety analysis, an incident classification, an inspection sign-off: a person signs those, every time, and Copilot is not in that loop.

</aside>

Spreadsheet copy of the table above, for anybody who does not use Notion. Same columns, with the example rows on their own tab.

Spreadsheet copy of the table above, for anybody who does not use Notion. Same columns, with the example rows on their own tab.

About this page

Part of Copilot on One Page, by Mathieu Kessler, independent practitioner: kesslernity.com. Checked against Microsoft's own documentation in August 2026. Free to use and print, personally or inside your business. Keep the source credit. Full terms: kesslernity.com/license.