Glossary term
Decision memo
Also: Entscheidungsmemo, Decision record
A short structured document that captures why a decision was made, the options considered, the criteria and trade-offs, the stakeholders involved and the accepted risks. A good decision memo is auditable months later.
A decision memo is the primary artefact produced when an organisation runs a structured technology buying decision. It is not a report, not a slide deck and not a meeting minutes document. It is a single object of record that survives personnel changes, audits and board review.
A well-formed decision memo includes: the trigger (why now), the mandate (who asked), the options on the table including status quo, the weighted criteria, the dealbreakers, the evidence behind each data point, the stakeholder positions, the risks accepted, and the decision with justification.
In regulated scopes (NIS2 Art. 20, DORA Art. 28, ISO 27001), the decision memo functions as the evidence trail that management body oversight, vendor selection and risk acceptance actually happened.
Related terms
Readiness Score
A 0–100 score that quantifies how decision-ready a memo actually is. It breaks down into criteria co…
Defensible record
A single versioned artefact that captures a decision in enough structure, with enough evidence and s…
Audit-ready decision
A decision whose record is structured, evidence-backed and stakeholder-signed to a level that a thir…