# RedDogSME Azure Architecture Assessment Scorecard

Use this scorecard before funding an AI, data, or cloud initiative for production.

## 1. Business Case

- What business objective does this initiative support?
- Who owns the business decision?
- What decision or funding request needs support?
- What outcome would make this initiative worth continuing?
- What deadline, customer need, audit need, or board concern is driving urgency?

## 2. Use Case and Value

- What user, team, or business process changes if this works?
- What use cases are in scope for the first production path?
- What use cases are explicitly out of scope?
- What measurable value should be reviewed after launch?
- What would make the initiative stop or defer?

## 3. Data and AI Boundary

- What data sources are required?
- What data is sensitive, regulated, customer-facing, or confidential?
- Which models, agents, tools, and retrieval paths are required?
- How will prompts, model responses, and tool actions be evaluated?
- How will content safety, access, and cost be controlled?

## 4. Azure Platform

- Which subscriptions, environments, and regions are involved?
- Is there an Azure Landing Zone or platform standard to follow?
- How will identity, networking, private access, and policy work?
- How will infrastructure and application changes be deployed?
- What monitoring, logs, dashboards, and alerts are required?

## 5. Security and Governance

- Who approves production access, data movement, and model access?
- What risks need security, legal, compliance, or cyber insurance review?
- What architecture decisions need an ADR?
- What evidence is required before production?
- Who owns risk after launch?

## 6. Cost and Capacity

- What is the target monthly run rate?
- Which services drive the largest expected cost?
- Who owns budget, tags, log retention, reservations, and cleanup?
- How will AI consumption be measured and reported?
- What cost threshold triggers review?

## 7. Operations and Handoff

- Who owns the capability after launch?
- What runbook, escalation path, and support process are required?
- What training or documentation does the owning team need?
- What KPIs should be reviewed monthly?
- What governance cadence continues after launch?

## Scoring

Use a simple score from 1 to 5 for each domain.

- 1 means unknown or not started.
- 3 means partially defined with material gaps.
- 5 means ready for production planning or implementation.

## Recommended Next Step

- Mostly 1s and 2s: start with Azure Architecture Assessment.
- Mostly 3s: use Azure Architecture Assessment or Architecture Blueprint Sprint depending on owner clarity.
- Mostly 4s and 5s: move into Architecture Blueprint Sprint or Pilot to Production Build.
- Production already active: consider Managed AI and Cloud Governance.