READOS / Business
Valuing Time, Delay and Uncertainty
Putting a value on delay, waiting, outcomes, information and options, so uncertain decisions can be compared.
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- 01What is a day worth? Pricing delay before deciding whether to speed upTeams price acceleration to the cent and treat delay as free. How to work out what a day of delay costs in lost contribution and ongoing costs, and decide when speed is worth buying.
- 02What waiting for decisions costs: pricing the time between a question and its answerCost systems track work that has a cost code, but deciding has none, so waiting gets blamed on delivery. How to keep a priced log of pending decisions and set authority to match.
- 03Time to value: the clock starts before the project doesProject schedules run from mobilisation to handover, but a business pays from decision to first revenue. How to measure and own the front-end and start-up intervals where time goes.
- 04The J-curve: why changes often get worse before they get better, and how to plan for the dipNew products, systems and pivots often cost money and output before they pay. How to plan the dip, tell a J-curve from a decline, and make the dip shallower and shorter.
- 05Funding the overlap: the cost of running old and new side by sideWhen a business switches systems, premises or suppliers, there is a period when both run. How to price that overlap, give it an owner and decide when the old way can safely be switched off.
- 06Putting a dollar value on equipment losses: using OEE to guide capacity and capital decisionsAn OEE percentage shows capacity is being lost, not what the loss is worth. How to value downtime, speed and quality losses, focus on the constraint and check before buying equipment.
- 07Near-certain problems: why the things you expect to go wrong need a budget and an ownerRisk lists drop items once they look certain, so the most likely problems often get no allowance or plan. How to record, price and fund the problems your team already expects.
- 08Utility: putting a value on outcomes when choices are uncertainExpected value is not enough when outcomes are risky. How utility theory, rational preferences, risk attitudes and the maximum expected utility principle help make consistent choices.
- 09Models rank options, people decide value: trade-offs, efficient choices and what countsA scoring model gives the best answer to the question it was given. How to remove clearly worse options, see real trade-offs, treat weightings as decisions and agree what value means.
- 10Who wins, who pays: making gainers and losers visible in business decisionsA change can save money overall and still land hard on a few staff, customers or neighbours. How to map who gains and who pays, avoid netting away concentrated harm and plan mitigation.
- 11The value of information: when is it worth finding out more?Information is only valuable if it could change your decision. How to calculate the value of information, judge whether a test is worth its cost, and avoid analysis that changes nothing.
- 12When outside uncertainty hits: change your options, not just your forecastInflation, finance, politics and supply shocks can change whether you can operate, not just your margins. How to tell the two apart, keep options open and set triggers before you need them.
These topic-based reading collections are organised alphabetically; chapters may be read in any order.
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