Decision Authority Framework

Build-vs-buy decisions involve engineering (who wants to build), procurement (who wants to buy), finance (who controls the budget), and product (who owns the requirement). Without a clear decision authority framework, these stakeholders negotiate ad hoc, and the outcome depends on organizational politics rather than analysis. The decision authority framework assigns decision rights based on the scale and strategic impact of the decision.

1. Tier 1: Team-Level Decisions TCO under $50K/year and low strategic impact. Decision authority: engineering team lead with product approval. Requirement: documented rationale using the five-dimension framework. No executive review required. Most library-level and tool-level decisions fall in this tier.
2. Tier 2: Department-Level Decisions TCO $50K-$500K/year or moderate strategic impact. Decision authority: department head with finance approval. Requirement: full TCO model, vendor scorecard (for buy), and risk assessment. Ecosystem intelligence input from VANGUARD. Most platform-level and service-level decisions fall in this tier.
3. Tier 3: Strategic Decisions TCO over $500K/year or high strategic impact. Decision authority: executive team with board awareness. Requirement: full decision package including TCO, risk assessment, ecosystem trajectory analysis, and scenario modeling. These decisions warrant dedicated ecosystem intelligence analysis and may require external validation.