A Practical ADR Template for Mid-Market Teams

Who this is for

Teams that write trade-offs down before coding burn fewer sprints when a stakeholder changes their mind mid-build. We keep ADRs short on purpose.

Decisions that still look smart in 18 months

Instrument the happy path and the ugly path. Silent failures are what turn a launch into a weekend incident.

Build checklist we actually use

Instrument the happy path and the ugly path. Silent failures are what turn a launch into a weekend incident.

Failure modes we keep seeing

Use boring technology where the risk is operational. Save novelty for the one wedge that makes the product worth buying.

How we measure rollout

Ignore the buzzwords. For A Practical ADR Template for Mid-Market Teams, the hard constraint is usually data ownership or ops capacity — not how many features fit on a roadmap slide.

We update this when delivery patterns change on live client work.