Look SidewaysA guided argument against comparison

Decision lab · your assumptions · local only

Make the assumptions do the talking.

Put time, money, and resources into one common value unit. Name every plausible outcome. Assign the probabilities yourself. This worksheet does the arithmetic—and nothing more.

Build your ledger
Expected valueΣ probability × outcome value
Expected ROI(expected value − investment) ÷ investment

No model chooses what success means. No data leaves this page.

Set the frame

What action are you evaluating?

The return and every investment must use the same value unit.

Investment

Value what you put in

Convert unlike inputs first. For example: 40 hours × your value per hour. Every row remains part of the ROI denominator.

Foundation Prerequisites, access, runway, tools, and getting into position.Capability-building Developing skills or turning access into usable leverage.Final mile Inputs applied directly to producing the evaluated outcome.
Returns

Describe what could happen

Enter total value received—not profit. The probabilities must reconcile to 100%; the worksheet will never normalize them for you.

Probability assigned0%100% remaining

Blank by default. The example is fictional and exists only to show how the worksheet behaves.

Same effort · different distance

The advantage is often where effort can land.

A person with runway, tools, access, or a prepared starting position may devote more of the same total effort to final-mile execution. Someone else may spend much of that effort creating the conditions required to reach the final mile.

Neither path implies less effort. The allocation is different.
Conceptual illustration · 100 effort units each · not measured people
Building the starting positionMore effort before the outcome-producing frontier
553015
Beginning closer to the final mileMore effort can land directly on execution
103060

What this number cannot decide

It cannot estimate probability. Your percentages are assumptions, not predictions derived from the successful people in this dataset.

It cannot define value. Money, time, learning, reputation, autonomy, and harm only become comparable after you choose a common unit.

It cannot measure courage or merit. Two decisions can have the same expected ROI and radically different downside, reversibility, and lived cost.