strategyplaybook.aiSqwyz
Sign in
← All 124 tools
Choice · Choose

Weighted decision matrix

Scores options against weighted criteria to produce a defensible comparison. Rigorous when the criteria are agreed first, and a way of laundering a preference when they are not.

The printable canvas and the handoff into Claude Code are part of a paid plan. See what a plan includes. It needs the Claude desktop app on this machine, and your team and the prompt library already installed in that project — we cannot see your disk, so open it there.

Stage
03 Choose
Works at
All levels
Maturity
Early startup → Large organisation
Time
Two hours

What it is

A comparison of options against explicitly weighted criteria, producing a total score for each. It exists to make reasoning visible and challengeable rather than to make the decision, and its value collapses entirely if the criteria are set after the options are known.

Criteria
What matters in this decision, kept to five or seven and defined so they do not overlap. Overlap silently double-counts.
Weights
Relative importance, agreed by the people who own the decision, before any option is scored.
Scores
How each option performs on each criterion, evidenced where possible and marked as judgement where not.
Weighted total
Score times weight, summed. A summary of the reasoning above, not an answer in itself.
Sensitivity
Whether the ranking survives plausible changes to the weights. A result that flips under small movement has told you the options are close, which is itself useful.
The mistake people makeSetting the weights after seeing the options is the standard abuse, and it is usually unconscious. Lock the criteria and weights in a separate session, ideally with a different room, before any scoring begins.
What it’s forYou have several options, agreed criteria, and need a defensible comparison.
What it’s not forThe criteria are contested. The matrix will simply encode whoever set the weights.

How you run it

  1. Agree the criteria and weights before seeing any option scoresSet them afterwards and you have built a machine for justifying a conclusion already reached. This sequencing is the whole integrity of the method.
  2. Keep the criteria few and independentFive to seven. Overlapping criteria double-count the same advantage and quietly inflate whichever option has it.
  3. Score on evidence where it existsMark clearly which scores are measured and which are judgement, and who made them.
  4. Test the weightsChange them within a plausible range and see whether the ranking holds. If a small shift flips the answer, the matrix has not decided anything.
  5. Overrule it if it is wrongIf the winner feels wrong, that is information — usually a missing criterion. Find it and add it rather than either ignoring the matrix or capitulating to it.

The prompt

Two ways to run it

Run this tool in your own Claude

The short prompt starts your partner against the library on your disk. The long one carries everything with it and needs nothing installed.

🔒 Prompt locked

Everything above is free — what this tool is, what it is for, what it is not for, and how to run it as a workshop. Three tool prompts a month are free with an account; beyond three, and for the printable canvas, it is the paid part.

See plans — from £19 a month

Your playbook

It lands in the earliest stage this tool suits. Move it on the Playbook page.

You’ll need

  • A shortlist of genuinely different options
  • Criteria the decision-makers have agreed
  • Evidence, or an honest note where scores are judgement

You’ll end up with

  • A scored comparison with the working visible
  • A sensitivity check on the weights
  • A decision, or a clear reason the matrix did not settle it

Runs well with

Acquisition screen and synergy thesisAI opportunity mapAssumption mappingBoard paper