Quick Start: Your First Decision

Welcome to Axiom. Building great products requires making hard choices. Axiom gives you a structured, transparent, and trackable framework so you can spend less time debating in Slack and more time shipping.

In this guide, we'll walk through a real-world scenario: Selecting a Marketing CRM.

1. Create your Project

A Project is your isolated workspace for a single decision. Think of it as a living document where context, constraints, and consensus are actively managed.

1. Navigate to the left sidebar and click New Project.
2. Name your project: "Marketing CRM Selection".
3. Add a description: This is crucial. Define the why to anchor your team's focus. For example: "We are migrating away from our legacy CRM to improve marketing automation and reduce API latency."
4. Choose your scale: (Applicable for Weighted matrices). You can select 1-5 or 1-100. We recommend 1-5 for most heuristic decisions as it reduces cognitive load.
5. Select decision type: Choose Weighted Decision Matrix. Note: This cannot be changed later.

2. Define the Constraints (Criteria)

Criteria are the rules of engagement. They define exactly what makes an option viable or exceptional. Axiom splits these into two specific types to streamline evaluation.

Elimination Criteria (Dealbreakers)

Elimination criteria are absolute constraints. If a vendor fails an elimination criterion, they are instantly disqualified. By default, these start as Unanswered so you can collect data without premature bias.

Let's add one:

1. Click Add Criteria and select Elimination.
2. Name it: "SOC2 Compliance".
3. Description: "Must have a publicly verifiable SOC2 Type II audit."

Scoring Criteria (Performance)

These criteria measure how well an option satisfies your needs.

Let's add one:

1. Click Add Criteria and select Scoring.
2. Name it: "Pricing & Budget".
3. Weighting: Axiom allows you to assign a weight (e.g., Very High, Average, Low). Axiom handles the underlying math, proportionally balancing this criterion against others.

3. Populate your Options

Options are the actual candidates you are evaluating. As you explore the market, drop vendors directly into the matrix.

1. Click Add Option. Name the first one "Vendor Alpha".
2. Provide a brief description or link to their documentation.
3. Add another named "Vendor Beta".

4. Evaluate and Resolve

With the architecture built, your team enters the Evaluate phase. On the evaluation page, you score options against the criteria.

Collaborating with your Team

Instead of overriding each other, team members can use the Suggestions flow.

• If Engineering thinks Vendor Alpha's UX is a 4, but Design thinks it's a 2, Design can submit a suggested score with a comment.
• The Project Driver or Approver can review and ratify these suggestions, maintaining a clean audit trail.

Reaching Consensus

Once the scores are locked in, review the automatic weighted rankings. Move the project into the Decision phase to officially document the chosen option, record the rationale, and collect stakeholder endorsements.