List 15 to 25 Real Decisions From the Past Year
The Decision Inventory
Companion to The CTO You Actually Need · Updated 2026-09-29
List 15 to 25 decisions. Use actual examples from the past year. Do not list general responsibilities.
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Decision | A choice with alternatives, owner, and consequence |
| Trigger | What causes the decision to arise |
| Business outcome | Revenue, customer, cost, risk, operation, or option affected |
| Current owner | Person who makes the final call in practice |
| Required contributors | People with evidence or execution responsibility |
| Time horizon | Immediate, quarterly, one-to-three-year, or longer |
| Wrong-answer cost | Delay, money, failure, trust, lock-in, or lost opportunity |
| Future CTO right | Own, share, influence, review, delegate, or narrow veto |
| Escalation | Threshold and final authority |
| Evidence gap | What the company cannot currently see |
Common decisions to consider:
- Product and market priority with technical consequences.
- Major architecture and platform choice.
- Build, buy, partner, or stop.
- Reliability and resilience investment.
- Material security, privacy, safety, or regulatory risk.
- Customer-specific commitment.
- Capacity between roadmap and foundational work.
- Vendor commitment and exit.
- Data ownership and AI use.
- Acquisition diligence and integration.
- Senior technology leadership appointment.
- Technology budget and capital allocation.
- Decommissioning and accepted debt.
- Public technical claim.
- Release or launch readiness.