Blockchain or Not? An Auditable Decision Framework for Organisations

Abstract

Determining when not to adopt blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) remains difficult, especially in public-sector and social-good initiatives where unjustified experimentation can waste scarce resources, increase compliance burden, and weaken institutional accountability. This paper presents a compact, evidence-based phase–gate framework for auditable blockchain adoption decisions. The framework structures the decision as a sequence of bounded phases and must-meet gates, each producing minimal evidence artefacts and explicit go/no-go outcomes. When a decisive condition is not satisfied, the process exits towards a documented non-DLT alternative rather than compensating the failure through later scoring. The procedure separates necessity from implementability. First, a necessity triage verifies lawful immutable processing, independent writers operating under limited trust, and a genuine requirement for cross-boundary immutability. Only then does the framework assess permission and disclosure fit, IT integration, smart-contract maintainability, performance and finality under stated Service Level Objectives (SLOs), and economic sustainability. Focused subflows support legal and compliance analysis, integration readiness, and performance assessment. Derived from a structured review and comparative mapping, the framework is appraised analytically and through a formative walk-through with first-time users at a commercial engineering-software vendor. The results indicate clearer rejection pathways, improved decision transparency, and a more auditable route to adoption when blockchain is warranted.