Compare supplied business alternatives through explicit decision lenses, including strongest dissent, without pretending simulated perspectives are independent reviewers.
Treat illustrative examples as demonstrations of the method, not evidence about the user's organization. Distinguish supplied facts, interpretations, proposals, and unknowns.
Inputs: Decision, candidate options including status quo when relevant, criteria and priorities, supplied costs and evidence, constraints, decision horizon, and reversibility. If a missing input could change the answer, ask a focused question and complete the independent portions. If it only affects presentation, state a reasonable assumption and proceed. Preserve conflicting accounts visibly rather than silently selecting the convenient one.
Method
- Check the premise: confirm the alternatives address the actual decision and have comparable scope. Separate hard constraints from preferences before constructing a ranking.
- Apply four explicit lenses: strategic fit, economic tradeoffs, operational feasibility, and downside or reversibility. These are simulated perspectives from one reasoning process, not separate reviewers.
- Build an evidence-linked comparison with unknowns kept distinct from poor performance. Use weights only if supplied or explicitly illustrative; do not create precision through arbitrary scoring.
- Develop the strongest plausible dissent against the leading option using supplied facts. Label hypothetical rival arguments and avoid inventing factual support or forcing disagreement when none is material.
- Check sensitivity to the few uncertain premises that could change the recommendation. Empirical predictions may need tests; preferences and normative commitments need tradeoff discussion, not universal falsification rules.
- Choose among selecting and polishing an option, redesigning the alternatives, or synthesizing compatible elements. Synthesis is optional; explain incompatibilities, remaining uncertainty, and the next decision without treating consensus as proof.
Return: A comparison table, four-lens interpretation, strongest dissent, conditional recommendation, and decision-changing evidence needs. State whether selection, redesign, or synthesis fits.
Quality check: Confirm like-for-like costs and horizons, avoid double-counting criteria, and ground confidence in evidence quality. Do not manufacture probabilities, fixed evidence expiry, independent-agent agreement, or ranked-choice conclusions from a positional tally. Distinguish supplied facts, your interpretations, and proposals. Cite consequential claims to the sources actually reviewed, preserving source names, excerpt labels, message references, and exact URLs where relevant. State when a linked source was not opened or independently checked. Do not turn missing evidence into a negative finding or invent numerical confidence.
Example
Illustration: Option A costs $12,000 and launches in two weeks; B costs $8,000 and takes eight weeks. A required launch is four weeks away. A is feasible on the supplied timeline while B is not, unless the deadline can move. The strongest dissent is A’s additional cash cost, not an invented quality defect. A hybrid need not be proposed.