thinking-opportunity-cost

1# Opportunity Cost
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3Core rule: every commitment displaces its best alternative. Report both that forgone value and the net value delta; decide on the delta, not the chosen path alone.
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5## When to Use
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7- Allocating scarce time, headcount, budget, or attention across competing options
8- Feature prioritization, build-vs-buy, tech-debt vs product work
9- Saying yes to a large commitment that displaces other work
10- Comparing a bold path against polishing the status quo when windows may close
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12## When NOT to Use
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14- Trivial or cheaply reversible choices where analysis costs more than the resource
15- No real alternative use (resource is idle, earmarked, or non-fungible)
16- Mandatory work (compliance, security fix, hard dependency) with no optional alternative
17- Inventing speculative alternatives only to look rigorous when the next-best is clearly worse
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19## Procedure
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211. **State the commitment.** Name the choice, the scarce resource units (eng-weeks, dollars, calendar), and the decision horizon.
222. **List real alternatives, including do-nothing.** At least: proposed option, next-best productive use of the same resources, and status quo / wait. Drop fantasy options with no owner or feasibility.
233. **Value each path.** For each alternative, estimate direct value, strategic value, risk, and time-to-value in the same units. Prefer rough comparable magnitudes over fake precision.
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