ADRs name the decider
Each decision record carries the name of the person who made the call and the reasoning behind it.
← The K-Framework
★ Judgment · Intellectual ControlLayer 15 of 16Visual guide
PILLAR C · LAYER 04 · C.04Intellectual Ownership.
Own decisions, own outcomes.
What a CEO/CTO needs to know
When something breaks, the useful question is not whose fault, it is whose decision and what we would change. If no name is attached to the big choices, the fix has nowhere to land.
A decision with a name and a recorded reason, so accountability and the path to revisit it are both clear.
[WHAT IT IS]
The engineer’s view, in plain language.
No "the framework made me do it." Every architectural decision has a name attached, a reason recorded, and a path to revisit it. When something breaks, the question is whose decision, and what we would change next time.
[HOW WE BUILD IT]
What “done right” looks like.
Reviews have a questioner
A designated questioner pressure-tests decisions in review, so ownership is active rather than diffuse.
Post-incident, not post-blame
Incident reviews examine decisions, not people, so the team gets safer to own hard calls and the choices compound in quality.
[MATURITY LADDER]
Where does your build sit?
Four rungs from absent to production-grade. Level 3 is the target, and the only one that survives a real production incident.
L0
Absent
Decisions are anonymous. No one can say who chose what or why.
L1
Ad-hoc
Some decisions are recorded, but ownership and reasoning are thin.
L2
Managed
ADRs exist but often lack a named owner or a revisit path.
L3Target
Production-grade
Every decision names its decider and reasoning; reviews are decision-focused, not blame-focused.
[VALIDATE IT YOURSELF]
How to check it’s really there.
You do not need to read the code. Ask these questions and demand these artifacts. Vague answers are the finding.
★ Ask your team
- ?Who chose our model, framework, and schema, and where is the reasoning?
- ?When a decision proves wrong, how do we revisit it without blame?
- ?Does every major decision have a name attached?
★ Demand to see
- ADRs that name the decision-maker and the reasoning
- A designated questioner role in reviews
- Decision-focused post-incident reviews
● WHAT L0 LOOKS LIKE
The failure mode, in production.
Decisions made by committee with no clear owner. When the system fails, nobody can say who chose the model, the framework, or the schema. The blame is diffuse and the fix is nowhere.
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