Can your decisions withstand scrutiny?
A concise, evidence-based checklist for boards and executives — 24 questions across six areas, drawn from the framework in Built to Be Examined. Work through it against a real matter your organisation handled in the last twelve months. Any question you cannot answer from the file is the answer.
- Decision ownership
- Intake and triage
- Records made as the work happens
- Evidence preservation
- Reasoning made visible
- Independent examinability
The checklist is a companion to Built to Be Examined, Daniel Baulch's guide to building decisions, records and systems that withstand scrutiny.
Six sections. Twenty-four questions. No score.
Each section carries four checks you can evidence today, plus the red flag that most often shows up when the ground has not been laid.
- 01
Decision ownership
Who decides what, on what authority, and where that is recorded at the time.
- 02
Intake and triage
One consistent way concerns enter the organisation, assessed against a written threshold.
- 03
Records made as the work happens
Contemporaneous records that survive retrieval years later, with amendments tracked.
- 04
Evidence preservation
What counts as evidence here, who secures it, and from what moment.
- 05
Reasoning made visible
Why the chosen course was chosen, including the options that were rejected.
- 06
Independent examinability
Whether an outsider could reconstruct the decision from the file alone.