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Decision memo template

For non-trivial product decisions: kill / continue / pivot, build vs. buy, refactor vs. rebuild, pricing changes, scope expansion.

Designed to be short. A two-page decision memo beats a 15-slide deck for most decisions.

Title

[Short, specific. The decision in one line.]

Recommendation

One sentence, owned. I recommend we [decision], for [primary reason].

Take a position. Hedging is not a recommendation.

Context

What changed that makes this decision necessary now? (2–4 sentences.)

The decision

What are we deciding between? List the real options. Not "do nothing" as a default — describe what "do nothing" actually means.

  • Option A: [...]
  • Option B: [...]
  • Option C: [...]

Reversibility

Is this a one-way door or two-way door?

  • If reversible: what does the unwind cost?
  • If irreversible: what's the rigor we've applied to match the irreversibility?

For one-way doors, the rest of this memo deserves more weight than for two-way doors.

Tradeoffs

Two or three most important tradeoffs across the options. Honest comparison.

For each tradeoff:

  • What's gained
  • What's lost
  • Which option does best on this dimension

Load-bearing assumptions

What would have to be true for the recommendation to be right?

  • Assumption 1 — evidence / hypothesis / guess?
  • Assumption 2 — evidence / hypothesis / guess?
  • Assumption 3 — evidence / hypothesis / guess?

If two or more are guesses, the memo is not yet ready to commit.

Risks and mitigations

Three risks max. The ones that matter most.

For each:

  • The risk
  • The signal that would tell us it's materializing
  • The mitigation

Success and failure criteria

Pre-committed.

  • Success: [metric, value, timeline]
  • Failure: [metric, threshold, timeline]
  • Kill criterion: what would force us to stop?

Asks

If the recommendation requires support from leadership, name it specifically:

  • Headcount: [n people, roles]
  • Air cover: [specific narrative or commitment]
  • Other: [specific resource or constraint relief]

Vague support is not actionable.

Open questions

What's still unresolved. For each: owner, deadline.

How to use

Write the recommendation first. Then write the rest as the defense of the recommendation.

If, while writing the rest, the recommendation visibly breaks — change the recommendation. The memo is a forcing function for clarity, not a sales document for a decision you've already made.