Use it for one decision
Do not turn this into a full requirements document. Use one page to make the decision, context, trade-offs and next test explicit enough for the people who must act on it.
Practical artifact
Minimum Viable Decision Brief
The smallest useful document for making one product or engineering decision visible, owned and testable.
Fill in the brief
- Decision: what must be decided now?
- Context: what evidence and constraint matter?
- Options: what are the real alternatives?
- Risks: what could make the choice wrong?
- Owner: who makes the call?
- Test: what reversible step creates evidence?
- Review date: when will you inspect what changed?
Counter-example
This artifact is the wrong tool when the real constraint is missing authority, staffing, specialist technical capability or unresolved organizational conflict. Naming that constraint is the decision.
How it connects to The Push
The brief is useful when a live decision keeps returning to one leader. The Push uses artifacts like this to test whether decision rights and operating habits are changing in real work.