Step 2 · System of record
System of record.
You've all got systems of record. What is one? A source of truth.
Step two takes the evidence gathered in step one and locks what is decided into the record. Not everything is important. A person decides what becomes the record, and the rest waits, with its origin attached, until it matters.
We start with selections, the Lego bricks of a project. Humans manage them, agents monitor them, and the record holds them.
Provenance
Where did it come from, and who signed it?
Provenance: the origin and history of a fact. Where it came from, who confirmed it, and every change since, with a name and a date on each.
Provenance is an art word. A painting is worth what its paper trail says: who painted it, who owned it, what happened to it since. A decision on a construction project is the same. Eighteen months after the fact, the only thing that settles “the client agreed to it on the walk” is whether you can show it.
Provenance always mattered on a project. With agents reading and writing, it matters ten times more. An answer you can't trace is an answer you can't use. So every fact in the record carries three things.
The source
Where it came from
A meeting, an email, a site walk, a document. Every answer the system gives you points back to the moment it came from, and you can click through to it.
The gate
Human verified
Certain information requires human verification before it's locked in the system of record.
The history
Who · What · When
Every change to a locked fact, with who made it, what changed and when. “When” is version control. This was the selection a week ago and it isn't now, and you can see exactly that. That is what a source of truth is for.
Transforming a project, step by step.
- Step 1CommunicationCollect the evidence
- Step 2System of recordThe source of truth
- Step 3OperationsThe engine room
- Step 4OnboardingGetting started