Tool 27 of 32 · about an hour
Definiteness Scoring
Weights certainty over cheapness, because one hard, certain move beats five easy hopeful ones.
In Plan, on the candidate move list, after gates are marked and the stop line exists.
What it is for
To rank candidate moves so certainty, treating the diagnosed root, and unlocking other work beat cheap-and-fast hopeful bets.
The failure it catches
The move that will definitely work usually feels hardest, so companies place many small hopeful bets instead, and the sum of small hopeful bets is usually a flat quarter. Standard impact-versus-effort scoring makes this worse, because it rewards cheap-and-fast.
Why it works
Weighting how certain a move is to work, anchored to whether this exact move has worked before, above effort, reverses the usual scoring that starves the hard move and funds the hope portfolio.
How to run it
- Score every candidate move on five things. How certain is it to work, weighted heaviest, and certainty must be anchored to evidence: has this exact move worked before, here or anywhere. Whether it treats the diagnosed root or soothes a symptom. Whether its outcome unlocks or invalidates other work. Whether it produces a visible pulse on a number that matters. And how reversible it is.
- Effort enters only as a tiebreaker.
- Every chosen move records what it pushed aside and why that trade is accepted, in writing.
- The exact weights we use put certainty first, then constraint impact, then gate status, then sign-of-life value, then reversibility. Those weights are our judgment, not proven science, and we recalibrate them as engagements accumulate. We never pretend otherwise.
How to read the result
One hard, certain, unlocking move beats five easy hopeful ones by construction. A six-item plan with no sure thing on it is a hope portfolio.
How to run it well
- Anchor definiteness to evidence. Has this exact move worked before, here or anywhere.
- Never present the weights as validated. They are judgment positions we recalibrate.
Where it breaks
- Scores can be gamed by optimistic certainty estimates. Without the evidence anchor, everything becomes a 5.
- The weights must never be presented as laboratory science.
What would prove it wrong
If top-scored moves systematically underperform lower-scored ones, the weighting is wrong and should be recalibrated from what actually happened.
What we watch
Whether top-scored moves outperform the hopeful ones they pushed aside, or whether the weighting keeps picking the wrong work.
Ask yourself
- Which move on the list is a sure thing, anchored to evidence that this exact move has worked before?
- Which moves treat the diagnosed root, and which only soothe a symptom?
- What did each chosen move push aside, and why is that trade accepted?
- Is the current plan a collection of easy hopeful bets with no sure thing on it?
Fed by: Leverage Layer, Gate-First Sequencing
Feeds: Leading-Indicator Shield