Decision analysis
SwingFactor takes a hard question apart into the propositions it rests on, the evidence for and against each, and what depends on what — then shows you which uncertainties could change the answer, and what to find out before you choose.
Free to read and challenge · seven days free to model your own · runs in your browser
How it works
SwingFactor drafts. A person decides what stands.
Say what you are deciding and why, the options on the table, the scenarios that could play out, and the sources you already trust.
SwingFactor drafts the propositions, the evidence and what depends on what. You accept, reject or correct each part — nothing counts until you do.
The uncertainties that could change which option wins, and what is still open: things to find out, things to build or test, and things that are yours to decide.
The uncertainties that swing it
Dependencies show what else moves when one thing does. Where people disagree about a number, each range is kept apart rather than averaged, and the switch point — where the preferred option changes — is marked. This part is computed, not generated: the same accepted model gives the same answer every time.
SwingFactor does not rank what is left open. Tell it what you are short of — time, money, people, access, a deadline — and it will help you order them, but the order is yours.
What is left open is sorted by what it would take to close:
SwingFactor proposes; you accept
SwingFactor drafts the options, propositions, evidence from your own sources and from research, dependencies and numbers, then reviews its own work as a sceptic would. Everything it writes arrives as a proposal, and nothing counts until a person has accepted it.
It is told never to invent a figure, a source, a quotation or a page, and to test every option as hard as the others. Where it suggests a number of its own, the number says so.
How it holds up
A model of a decision is only useful if someone can check it.
The question, taken apart
A decision is broken into the statements whose truth would change which option you prefer. Each is judged on its own terms — what kind of claim it is, how well it stands up, how strong its evidence is — and those judgements are never merged into one score.
Where every claim comes from
Evidence supports, contradicts or qualifies a proposition, and carries its source, the place in the source, who asserted it and any interest they declared. Estimates recorded as sharing an origin count once, however many times they are repeated, and anyone can challenge an origin that was missed.
Objections, answered on the record
Anyone who can read a question can object to any part of it. An editor resolves each challenge with a response, and records whether it was right — including the ones that were right but not adopted.
Decisions you can look back on
Every change is kept with who made it, when and why. Freeze the model under a name, compare two snapshots item by item, and record the decision against the snapshot it was made on — so what you knew at the time is read from the record, not remembered.
FAQ
What it is, what it costs, and what it will not do.
Seven days free
Take the choice you are least sure of, and see what it actually depends on.