Data

A decision memo

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The brief for this desk asks for one decision memo, for example a subscription audit, with the confounds stated rather than tidied away.

Not written yet, waiting on N-1

Any figure for this product. None were supplied and none reproduce from a repo or report in scope as of 2026-09-21. A decision memo is a number, a decision and a confound; with no sourced number, the other two would be invented to support it.

Checked 2026-09-21.

The shape it will take

  1. The question, before the data. Written first, so the analysis cannot quietly become a search for a result.
  2. What exactly was counted, and what was excluded. Including whether the exclusion is load-bearing.
  3. The number, with its source and the date it was pulled.
  4. The confounds. All of them found, including the ones that do not overturn the conclusion. A memo with no confound section means nobody looked.
  5. The decision. What was done differently. If the answer is nothing, that is a legitimate outcome and it gets written down as one.
  6. What would change it. Written before the decision is defended.

Why the confounds go in the body

Because a confound in a footnote is a confound the reader is being invited to skip.

The version of this memo that says "we cut the tool and saved X, and we also stopped the project that used it that month, and I still think the tool was not earning its place" is a document someone can argue with. The version that says "we cut the tool and saved X" is a document that can only be believed or doubted, and doubt is where it usually lands.

The method that will be applied to it

How I read a number: what exactly is counted, what is excluded, and what else changed at the same time.