AI Governance Engineer
GitHub

Justification memo

By Updated

The intake record for an AI use case: the problem, the non-AI alternative, the measurable benefit, who bears errors and how they contest them, reversibility and kill criteria. It answers "should AI be used at all" before a system reaches a gate, the go/no-go determination NIST places early 1.

Developed in
ch. 12, Strategy, value and whether to use AI at all
Chapters
ch. 12, Governance Program
Source
1 numbered reference, listed below

Where it is used

One chapter of the Body of Knowledge uses the term. Each link opens the first section that does.

Justification memo: mentions per chapter4 mentions of the term across 1 of the 23 chapters of the Body of Knowledge; the chapters the glossary cross-references are drawn solid.Cross-referenced chapter12 Governance Program: 4 mentions12 Governance Program4No mentions in the other 22 chaptersSource: the Body of Knowledgev0.5.0
Justification memo: mentions per chapter4 mentions of the term across 1 of the 23 chapters of the Body of Knowledge; the chapters the glossary cross-references are drawn solid.Cross-referenced chapter000102030405060708101112 Governance Program: 4 mentions4121314151617181920212223Source: the Body of Knowledge v0.5.0
Mentions per chapter How often each chapter names the term, with the chapters the glossary cross-references drawn solid. The longest bar is where to read the term in use; bars spread across many chapters mark a term that runs through the discipline.
Mentions as a table
Mentions of Justification memo per chapter
ChapterMentionsCross-referenced
00 Preface0No
01 Definition0No
02 Why Now0No
03 Values & Principles0No
04 The Stack0No
05 Patterns0No
06 The Role0No
07 Maturity Model0No
08 Regulatory Map0No
10 Reading List0No
11 AI Defined0No
12 Governance Program4Yes
13 Risk Management0No
14 Development0No
15 Deployment0No
16 Fairness & XAI0No
17 Incidents0No
18 EU AI Act0No
19 Privacy & AI0No
20 Existing Law0No
21 AI Laws Worldwide0No
22 Principles & Standards0No
23 AI Agents0No

Sources

  1. [1] Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework (AI RMF 1.0), NIST AI 100-1 (risk tolerance and residual risk; seven trustworthy characteristics; transparency answers "what happened", explainability "how", interpretability "why"; MAP 1.1 intended purposes; MANAGE 1.1 go/no-go determination; profiles). NIST. 2023-01-26. https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.AI.100-1 (verified: primary)

Definitions of legal terms paraphrase the cited text, which governs. Dated statements are as of .

Cite this term

García Aibar, J. (2026). Justification memo. In AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis & Body of Knowledge (v0.5.0), Glossary. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22956197. https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/justification-memo. CC BY 4.0

BibTeX

@misc{aige2026justificationmemo,
  author  = {Jorge García Aibar},
  title   = {{Justification memo}},
  note    = {Glossary, AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis \& Body of Knowledge, version 0.5.0},
  year    = {2026},
  doi     = {10.5281/zenodo.22956197},
  url     = {https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/justification-memo}
}