Executive Technology Decision Checklist

Questions to ask before approving a consequential technology decision.

This checklist is designed for executives, boards, founders, and technology leaders who need to understand the business consequences of technology choices before committing capital, risk, or organisational attention.

1. Business Clarity

• What business outcome is this decision meant to protect, improve, or enable?
• Which executive owns the business consequence, not only the delivery activity?
• What would make this decision look wrong in 12 months?

2. Decision Quality

• What trade-offs are being accepted, and are they explicit?
• What alternatives were considered and rejected?
• What assumptions must remain true for this decision to work?

3. Architecture And Optionality

• Does this choice preserve future options or narrow them?
• What new dependencies, constraints, or integration risks are being created?
• Is the architecture governable once the programme team has moved on?

4. Resilience And Control

• Which critical services depend on this decision?
• How will the organisation know that controls work under pressure?
• What changes in incident response, recovery, cyber, vendor, or service management?

5. Operating Model

• Who will run, fund, improve, and govern the capability after implementation?
• Do teams have the skills and decision rights required for the target state?
• What work must stop, change, or be simplified for this decision to succeed?

6. Commercial Discipline

• What is the cost of delay, complexity, and ongoing ownership?
• Are vendor incentives aligned to resilience, value, and service outcomes?
• What commercial lock-in is acceptable, and what is not?