Write It Down Like Someone Will Audit It

In my federal grants compliance days, we lived by one rule: if it isn't written down, it didn't happen.

Every dollar needed a trail. Who approved it, why it was needed, when it moved, what it bought. I used to think this was bureaucracy for its own sake. Then I watched a clean paper trail save a program's funding — and a missing file nearly end one.

Now I watch teams hand real decisions to AI tools with no record at all. No note on why this model was chosen. No log of the settings. No name next to the sign-off. An AI system deciding things about real people, with no receipts.

Here's the thing my grants years drilled into me: documentation isn't paperwork. It's proof. Proof that you thought it through, proof that a human was in charge, proof you can show when someone asks the hard questions.

So before your team deploys another AI tool, ask the grants question: could we reconstruct every important decision six months from now? If the answer is no, you don't have a system yet. You have a hope.

Write it down like someone will audit it. Because someone will.

I explain frameworks; I don't give legal counsel.