Lesson 4 of 5
Recording decisions and sign-off evidence
9 min
Six months after go-live, an auditor, a new CFO or a hypercare investigation asks: who decided this release could go, on what basis, and what did they know? If the answer is a set of slides and someone's memory, the program has a problem. A decision record makes the answer a five-minute lookup.
What a decision record contains
Evidence must be frozen. Cloud ALM analytics are live, so the defect count shown on Monday will differ by Thursday. For each criterion, keep the figure, the filter that produced it, the time and the person who took it. The SAP Cloud ALM quality gates course in this Academy covers how Contoso snapshots and stores gate evidence on Quality Gate tasks; the release board uses the same practice.
Where to keep it
| Record | Where Contoso keeps it | Why there |
|---|---|---|
| Board decision and conditions | Quality Gate task for the release in Cloud ALM, with checklist and attachments | Lives with the project; visible on the timeline |
| Accepted risks per feature | Note on each affected feature and its defects | Found when someone looks at the feature later |
| Condition follow-ups | Linked tasks with owner and due date | Tracked to closure, not forgotten in minutes |
| Signed reconciliations and sign-off forms | Attachments on the gate task, plus the controlled document store | Retention and audit access |
Where each part of the decision lives.
The sign-off chain
- Criteria ownersEach states met, not met or conditional, with evidence
- Process ownersDan and Maria sign business readiness and accept risks
- Release managerLuis confirms build and deployment readiness
- BoardGrace records the decision and conditions
- SponsorConfirms go for a major release
| Weak record | Strong record |
|---|---|
| "Release approved" | "Go with conditions for Release 1, all scope" |
| "Testing complete" | "SIT and UAT exit criteria met; snapshot Thursday 14:00, filter Release 1" |
| "Some open defects" | "Two high defects; risk statements attached; accepted by Dan and Maria" |
| "Team agreed" | "Decision makers: Dan, Maria, sponsor; chair Grace; dissent: none" |
Signatures should mean something specific. "Approved" on a slide means little. "I, Dan, accept that rebate accruals for one condition type will be posted manually until Release 1.1, using the documented workaround" means a lot. Write sign-off statements in that style; they take a minute longer and remove arguments later.
Delegation and absence
Decision makers get sick, travel and go on leave, usually in go-live week. Agree delegates in advance and record them in the decision record: "Dan absent; finance decisions delegated to the corporate controller by email dated Monday." A delegate who was never named in writing is a source of dispute later, especially when a risk they accepted turns into an incident.
- Name a delegate for every decision maker before the board cycle starts.
- Record the delegation, with its date and scope, in the decision record.
- Delegates receive the same pre-read and have the same question window.
- Keep records for the retention period your auditors and legal team set, beyond the life of the project workspace.
What would you do?
A week after go-live, someone edits the gate checklist in Cloud ALM to mark a condition as met that was actually still open at the time of the board. What is the issue and the fix?
- A decision record holds the decision, who, frozen evidence, conditions and risks, and dissent.
- Freeze evidence: figure, filter, time and author.
- Keep decisions on the release’s Quality Gate task and risks on the affected features.
- Write sign-off statements that say exactly what is accepted.
Check your understanding · not graded
Lesson check
1. Why must board evidence be frozen as snapshots?
2. Where should follow-up work for a condition be tracked?
3. Which sign-off statement is strongest?