Stakeholder brief
Vendor A costs £42k/year with strong workflow but weak export. B costs £55k with accessible UI and open APIs. C costs £30k with limited audit logs. Finance requires immutable approval evidence.
Decision brief
Define pass/fail controls before weighted scoring. Create criteria, weights totaling 100%, a proof-of-concept script, TCO assumptions and exit requirements. Explain sensitivity to weights.
Deliverable template
Problem / evidence / assumptions: Options and tradeoffs: Recommendation and rationale: Decision owner / governance: Dependencies / risks / mitigations: Success measure / review date:
Worked example & tradeoffs
Treat evidence retention and security as gates. Compare workflow fit, accessibility, integration, support and 3-year TCO including migration and exit. A low price cannot compensate for failing a mandatory audit control. Ask vendors to run the same £200.01 approval, failed payment and export scenarios with evidence. B may reduce integration risk; A may still win with a proven export remedy. Record conflict-of-interest and procurement review.
One defensible approach. Your decision can differ if your evidence and tradeoffs support it.
Write the artifacts in your own words. Use identifiers to connect the objective, requirements and tests.