Fund the safe project or the risky one?
Innovation budgets default to the safe bet because a 75% failure rate sounds disqualifying. But when a cheap prototype stage lets you kill the project before the expensive launch, the risky project can quietly dominate the incremental option. This tree makes that flip visible in one Run.
Work Intermediate Decision Tree Pro engine
After you install, this is the model to open.
Fund the Safe Project or the Risky One?
- In your spreadsheet, click the Sortia icon in the strip of icons down the right-hand edge. No strip? Click the arrow at the bottom-right to open it. You can also use Extensions, then Sortia, then Open Sortia.
- Click Start from a template and put that name in the search box.
- Pick the card with that name and click Load this template. It arrives on a new tab with real numbers already in it.
This one runs on a Pro engine, and every free install includes five full-quality runs on your own numbers, shared across all five Pro engines rather than five for each. After that, Pro is $199/year.
The answer
Click Run and the rollback picks the best action at every gate, then rolls the value back to the root.
- Risky project expected value
- $1.0M with the prototype kill option
- Safe refresh expected value
- $625K 50/50 between $850K and $400K
- Risky project if launch is forced
- $175K no stage gate, it loses to the refresh
- What the kill option is worth
- $825K $1.0M minus $175K
The risky project rolls back to a $1.0M expected value, 1.6 times the safe refresh at $625K, even though it disappoints 75% of the time. The entire edge comes from the stage gate: forced to launch either way, the risky project is worth only $175K and the safe project wins. The right to spend $500K, look at the prototype, and walk away is worth $825K by itself.
The model
Three ways to spend one product budget, with every leaf shown net of the costs on its path.
| Refresh, strong adoption (50%) | +$850K net |
| Refresh, soft adoption (50%) | +$400K net |
| Prototype cost, risky project | $500K |
| Breakthrough odds | 25% |
| Breakthrough launch payoff | +$5.5M net of a $2M launch |
| Modest result, launch anyway | -$1.6M net |
| Modest result, kill it | -$500K, prototype cost only |
Once it is in your sheet
- The model arrives with real numbers in it and runs as it stands, so you can press the button first and understand it second.
- Change the numbers to yours. The sheet marks which cells are inputs and which hold formulas, and most labels carry a note explaining the row.
- Press the run button at the bottom of the panel. It is labeled for the tool you are in, and the result lands on its own tab, with a written reading of it beside the figures.
Never used Google Sheets? Start here goes the whole way, in seven steps, and assumes nothing.
Next question
- Which offer package should you actually ask for?Job Offer Package Optimizer
- Big advance or double the royalty rate?Advance vs Royalty
- Ship at 80% confidence, or run one more validation round?Ship Now or Test More
- When does your rollout actually reach 80% adoption?How Long Until the Team Works the New Way?
- What would regret have to be worth to leap?Should You Take the Career Leap?
- How do you give every team a fair share of every skill?Balanced Team Builder
Every model like this one, and the method behind them: Decision trees.