Why every engagement starts with a written decision record

The second stage of every ICDATT engagement produces a document we call the architecture decision record. It is the artifact clients mention most, years later, and it is the reason our first engagements are fixed scope: the record is the deliverable, and you own it.

What is in it

One page per decision. Each page says what was decided, which alternatives were considered, why they were rejected, what the decision costs and what would make us revisit it. A migration record might have fifteen pages: target cloud, account structure, identity provider, network design, the disposition of each application group, database strategy, wave order, monitoring, backup, cost guardrails.

It is written for the person who was not in the room. A new engineer in two years, an auditor next quarter, a board member asking why the cloud bill looks the way it does.

Who signs it

You do. The Architect stage ends with a gate: the client reviews the record and either signs it or sends it back with questions. No build work starts before the signature. That sounds slow. It is the fastest part of the engagement, because every argument that would have happened in sprint six happens in week three, on paper, when it is cheap.

Why you keep it

Because the decisions are yours. If you take the record to another firm, or build it in-house, the thinking is done and documented. We would rather lose a build phase than hand a client a plan they cannot explain to their own board.

Why we insist on it

Three reasons from our side. It stops scope arguments later, because the scope is written. It makes the build team accountable to a plan the client approved rather than to their own preferences. And it makes us better, because a record of rejected alternatives is a record of what we got wrong last time.

The Process page walks through the five stages and the artifact each one produces. The record is the second.