Your product is a stack of decisions. Keep the reasons.
The most expensive meeting in a product org is the one that reverses a decision nobody remembers making.
Read the film transcript
Narration from this original film. Soft instrumental music plays underneath.
The research is in one folder, the decision in another, and the link between them in someone’s head.
Roadmap decisions lose their evidence, so the next debate reopens a call you already made with data.
Kept is a voice interview. June calls, asks about your work, and keeps what you say, in your words, in a jar that’s yours.
Planning comes round and someone asks why export was cut. Kept answers with the interview count and cites your call.
Product decisions keep their evidence, so they don’t get relitigated. Kept. Keep the knowledge behind the work.
Every mature product carries a graveyard of considered-and-rejected: the pricing model you tried, the integration you deliberately skipped, the architecture you walked away from. When the people who made those calls rotate out, the org re-explores the graveyard, at full cost, one confident new hire at a time.
Kept captures the rationale from the people who decided, in their words, and keeps it cited. Ask why the product does not do the obvious thing and get the actual answer, with a name and a date, or an honest unknown. Institutional judgment, retained.
Keeping a knowledge item does not promise permanent access to its original transcript. Sources can become unavailable after retention or removal. Check what evidence is available before relying on an answer.
Read personal and workspace controls. The overview above is available as text; explore the guided text walkthrough for a step-by-step example.