Building an audit-trail habit that sticks
Evidence fails when it is written for the writer’s memory instead of a stranger’s question. Use three lines every time you touch a recurring exception: what drifted, what you believe caused it, and what happens next with a date.
Store attachments where your review app expects them. Parallel folders on personal drives create ghost trails that vanish when someone leaves. If your classroom lab felt pedantic about export paths, that pedantry is the point.
Weekly, not heroic
Spend fifteen minutes mid-week clearing annotation debts rather than rebuilding history on close night. Teams that adopt this habit after Exception Narrative Clinic report fewer reopen loops—not because the numbers improved overnight, but because the story was already written.