Build the recommendation around an available decision

Start with the action the receiver can still change and the time at which the answer is needed. “Assess the investment” can mean choosing whether to bid, setting a maximum price, arranging finance for an agreed purchase or deciding whether to abandon it. Those questions can share a valuation while requiring different advice. Establish the actual alternatives with the receiver. Include continuing the feasible baseline and any smaller, later or conditional action that could meet the need. An already binding payment remains an obligation in every alternative unless an attainable amendment changes it.

Recover whose financial consequence governs the recommendation. A gain to an acquiring corporation, a gain to its existing shareholders and a gain to the combined business can differ. So can the interests of a subsidiary and its parent when money cannot move freely between them. State the relevant perspective and retain another claimant’s consequence when it changes consent, feasibility or the selected criterion. FIN.1 supplies the fuller framing when that question is unresolved. A recommendation can identify a conflict between objectives and return that particular choice to the receiver without pretending that a larger spreadsheet settles it.

The decision deadline determines useful detail. Before a nonrefundable deposit, the receiver needs the conditions that could make the commitment unacceptable. After the deposit has been paid, the advice compares the remaining continuations and their consequences. An investigation that finishes after the commitment can still improve later work, but it cannot be presented as information available for this decision. Identify what can be decided now and which later choice will use the next result.