Investment
Investment decisions are easy to decorate with models. Argumont compares the proposed use of money with doing nothing, delaying, or a different instrument, and ...
question
Fund it, or hold the capital?
A funding decision is rarely a plain yes or no. The money has another use: the next project in line, a reserve, paying down debt, or waiting a cycle. Argumont puts that other use on the Decision as an option and scores it as seriously as the proposal.
Argumont is decision support for organizational spending. It is not investment, tax, or accounting advice.
What the question is really asking
"Should we fund a $2 million ERP replacement this year or reserve the capital until next year?" is two courses, and the room argues both. Exception spend works the same way: the request competes with what the budget was already holding the money for.
Forecasts are claims
Savings, returns, and payback figures in a business case are weighed as claims. The room asks what each rests on, whether anything was observed rather than projected, and what happens to the choice if the forecast misses by a third or the project runs a year late.
How Argumont treats it
One Champion builds the case for funding and another for holding. Challenger attacks the business case. Wolf hunts budget creep and sunk cost. Red Teamer runs the quarter when the cash is needed elsewhere. The Judge scores both against the same criteria.
What the approver receives
A Verdict that names which course leads, the figures it rests on, and the conditions that would reverse it. The Decision Passport keeps the record for the controller, the board, or the auditor who asks later why the money was committed or held.
Example criteria
Best other use of the money
What the same money would do if it were held or spent on the next best option.
Downside if the forecast misses
What is lost if the projected return, savings, or timing do not arrive.
Forecast support
How much of the case rests on observed figures rather than projections.
Payback and timing
When the money comes back, and what waiting a cycle would cost.
Reversibility
Whether the spend can be stopped or recovered partway.
Example decision
Should we fund a $2 million ERP replacement this year or reserve the capital until next year? The room weighs the cost of running the old system another year against the risk of a rushed implementation, and names the figure that would change the Verdict.
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Questions
A useful question is the beginning of a Decision, not the end of one.
Bring Argumont a Decision worth challenging.
Structure the question, test the evidence and the assumptions, and preserve what your organization ultimately decides.
Weigh the funding request