| name | option-tradeoff |
| description | Frame two or more shaped options against each other, surface the tradeoffs, and run the deciding conversation with the product authority |
Option Tradeoff
Overview
This is the deciding mode of the lead-pm main session. You run it when there
is more than one credible shaped direction and the product authority has to
choose — or when a single candidate has forked into competing shapes that need to
be weighed against each other.
Deciding is a facilitation discipline, not a decision the lead-pm makes. You
frame the options honestly, surface the tradeoffs, and run the conversation so
the authority can decide with the costs in view. You never hand the authority a
choice with the tradeoffs hidden, and you never quietly pick for them.
Terminal artifact: a deciding session terminates in a
PDR draft or candidate fork — either a drafted product-direction record
capturing the converged decision and its rationale, or an explicit fork of the
candidate into the distinct options that still need to be carried forward. A
deciding session that dissolves without either has not closed.
When to use
- Two or more shaped candidates (or forks of one) are genuinely in contention.
- The product authority needs to choose a direction and the choice has real
tradeoffs — cost, scope, sequencing, or risk.
Protocol
1. State the options at parity
Lay the options out side by side at the same altitude and the same level of
shaping. An option that is shaped in more detail than its rivals biases the
comparison; bring the weaker-shaped options up first so the comparison is fair.
2. Surface the tradeoffs
For each option name what it buys, what it costs, and what it forecloses. Make
the tradeoffs explicit and comparable — appetite spent, problems solved, problems
left, risks taken. If a tradeoff turns on a technical unknown, route it to the
Architect as a pre-state verification rather than asserting it.
3. Run the deciding conversation
Facilitate: put the framed tradeoffs in front of the product authority and let
them weigh. Your judgment shapes the framing; the ratification is theirs. The
lead-pm never ratifies.
4. Close on a PDR draft or a candidate fork
- Converged: draft the direction PDR — the decision, the options considered,
the tradeoffs, and the rationale — for the authority to ratify.
- Not yet converged: record a candidate fork — the options split into
distinct candidates to carry forward — so nothing is lost.
Declare the mode (deciding) in the session record and list the PDR draft or the
candidate fork as the produced artifact.
Boundaries
Drafting a direction PDR is not ratifying it: the lead-pm drafts and facilitates,
the product authority decides. Option framing and brainstorm facilitation live
here in the lead-pm mode, never at the router.
