Decision Memos That Get Approved

Great ideas often fail, not because they're wrong, but because they're not presented clearly. That's why the decision memo is such a powerful tool in consulting, strategy, and even research settings. It forces clarity and alignment on a single page.

A good decision memo typically includes:

• Top-line recommendation: the choice you want made, in one clear sentence.

• Options considered: what alternatives you evaluated and why they were passed over.

• Risks & mitigations: what could go wrong, and how you plan to address it.

• Next steps / required resources: what you need now (budget, personnel, or time.)

This structure isn't guesswork. Many decision frameworks and memo guidelines emphasize a compact, logical format. For example, in Option and Decision Memos (Danziger, Harvard), the memo format is taught to start with the recommendation, then walk through options, then risks, then next steps.

Even Harvard Business Review discussed "One-Page Memos, Without Reductionism", the idea is not to oversimplify your logic, but to force you to distill and structure your reasoning so the decision is obvious.

Consulting firms like McKinsey use these kinds of memos because they respect decision-makers' time. Instead of a bloated deck, they want a document where the decision is already top of mind. McKinsey’s tools like decision frameworks and behavioral decision literature underscore this (ex. their Making Great Decisions report explores how structuring decision processes matters).

In research, decision memos work just as well. Whether you're proposing a new experiment, asking for instrument time, pitching collaboration, or defending a strategic shift, this format forces you to:

• Lead with clarity

• Show you've considered alternatives

• Anticipate objections

• Make it easy for others to say "yes"

Because decision-makers (whether PIs, lab heads, or funding panels) don't have time for ambiguity. They want to see your logic, your constraints, and your ask all in one page.

Great ideas don't fail for being wrong; they fail for being unclear.