A programme is more than one session
A workspace holds every session run inside a programme - not as separate files, but as one accumulating record a facilitator or steward can read across.
Platform
Institutional learning, not a one-off consultation.
Most consultation tools forget everything the moment the report is filed. Witness is built around the opposite assumption: that what an organisation learns in workshop one should still be legible in workshop five, and provable six months after the decision.
One programme, read across time
A synthetic example of how understanding, a decision and its outcome connect across separate workshops.
Illustrative example
- contributionWorkshop 1"We need X"leads to
- findingWorkshop 3"We've learned Y"leads to
- decisionDecision"We will change Z"leads to
- outcomeSix months laterWhat actually happened
What carries the record from one workshop to the next
A summary cites the sessions it came from
Each session gets its own summary, drafted from that session's confirmed evidence and citing exactly which pieces produced it - so a later reader can see what changed between one workshop and the next, not just what the latest one said.
A decision can be revisited honestly
A confirmed decision can later be superseded by a better one, or reversed outright with a stated reason. Both keep pointing at what came before - a changed mind is recorded, not hidden.
A closed record can be reopened
If new evidence changes what a confirmed record means, it can be reopened rather than left to quietly disagree with what actually happened next.
Commitments carry progress, not a single checkbox
An action tied to a commitment can move from in progress to blocked and back, with a note each time - so "what happened next" has an actual trail, not just a final status.