Short definition

A short sheet that keeps a decision together with what produced it: the decision, the alternatives considered, the reason for the choice, the conditions under which it holds and what would make it obsolete.

Full definition

The term comes from software engineering, where the Architecture Decision Record captures a technical choice and its context.

In the articles on this blog, it refers to the generic form, applicable outside software: a consulting engagement's recommendation, a product trade-off, an organizational choice. It stays attached to the case that produced it — in consulting, with the client, alongside the client's data.

Usage in the field

Used for the structuring recommendations of an audit or consulting engagement, and more generally for any decision you will want to understand or reuse later.

Synonyms and variants

"Decision sheet"; "decision log" for the full set of records.

Not to be confused with

• Architecture Decision Record — Architecture Decision Record — the original form, centred on a technical software architecture choice.
• Product Decision Record — Product Decision Record — the variant applied to product choices, attached to a product rather than to an engagement.
• Atomic note — an idea phrased to stand on its own, detached from its origin. The decision record stays attached to its case; the note draws from it what can circulate.

Examples

"Every structuring recommendation becomes a decision record."

Ambiguities / debates

The English term is used as is in French, which sometimes leads to it being confused with a plain record of a decision, with no alternatives or conditions.