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thinking-opportunity-cost

separate

Before committing scarce time, people, or money, name the best forgone use of those resources and the value delta of the chosen path versus that alternative.

When to use

• Allocating scarce time, headcount, budget, or attention across competing options
• Feature prioritization, build-vs-buy, tech-debt vs product work
• Saying yes to a large commitment that displaces other work
• Comparing a bold path against polishing the status quo when windows may close

When not to use

• Trivial or cheaply reversible choices where analysis costs more than the resource
• No real alternative use (resource is idle, earmarked, or non-fungible)
• Mandatory work (compliance, security fix, hard dependency) with no optional alternative
• Inventing speculative alternatives only to look rigorous when the next-best is clearly worse

Skill page

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