Rank initiatives evidence adjusted value

Rank initiatives using an explicit mixture of finance-approved value scenarios and a skeptical prior weighted by backtested evidence reliability, with downside and CVaR gates.

What it's for

Stops spectacular but weakly supported business cases from outranking credible value simply because their spreadsheet forecast is larger.

What you give it

Inputs split into evidence read from your connected systems, calibration your team owns, and numerical controls that affect precision but never the result's meaning.

Field Type Role Required
cvar_penalty_weight number ≥ 0, ≤ 100 Your calibration Optional
initiatives array of objects (4 fields) Evidence Yes
max_detail_rows integer ≥ 1, ≤ 500 Numerical control Optional
maximum_negative_net_value_probability number ≥ 0, ≤ 1 Your calibration Optional
minimum_evidence_reliability number ≥ 0, ≤ 1 Your calibration Optional
scenario_probabilities array of number ≥ 2 items Evidence Yes
skeptical_prior_incremental_value number Your calibration Optional
tail_probability number ≥ 0.001, ≤ 0.5 Your calibration Optional

Each initiatives record

Field Type Required
evidence_reliability number (≥ 0, ≤ 1) Yes
id string (non-empty) Yes
implementation_cost number (≥ 0) Yes
incremental_value_scenarios array of number (≥ 2 items) Yes
Example input
{
  "initiatives": [
    {
      "evidence_reliability": 0.85,
      "id": "credible-core",
      "implementation_cost": 100,
      "incremental_value_scenarios": [
        240,
        180,
        120
      ]
    },
    {
      "evidence_reliability": 0.25,
      "id": "weak-moonshot",
      "implementation_cost": 100,
      "incremental_value_scenarios": [
        600,
        350,
        100
      ]
    }
  ],
  "scenario_probabilities": [
    0.2,
    0.5,
    0.3
  ],
  "skeptical_prior_incremental_value": 0
}

What you get back

This is the actual output of running the example above — computed by the same function the platform calls, not an illustration.

Example output
{
  "assumptions": [
    "Incremental value scenarios use one finance-approved counterfactual, currency, horizon, attribution boundary, and joint scenario definition; implementation cost is fully loaded and non-overlapping.",
    "Evidence reliability is a governed, backtested probability that the submitted value model is decision-relevant; it is not confidence, sample size, or stakeholder enthusiasm by another name.",
    "The skeptical-prior mixture makes weak evidence explicit and portable but does not replace causal validation, strategic constraints, dependency analysis, or portfolio optimization."
  ],
  "configuration": {
    "cvar_penalty_weight": 0.25,
    "maximum_negative_net_value_probability": 0.5,
    "minimum_evidence_reliability": 0.5,
    "scenario_count": 3,
    "skeptical_prior_incremental_value": 0,
    "tail_probability": 0.1
  },
  "decision": "evidence_adjusted_initiatives_supported",
  "initiative_ranking": [
    {
      "clears_evidence_and_value_gates": true,
      "cvar_net_value_loss": 100,
      "evidence_adjustment": -26.1,
      "evidence_reliability": 0.85,
      "expected_evidence_adjusted_net_value": 47.9,
      "expected_observed_net_value": 74,
      "implementation_cost": 100,
      "initiative_id": "credible-core",
      "probability_negative_net_value": 0.15,
      "risk_adjusted_value_score": 22.9
    },
    {
      "clears_evidence_and_value_gates": false,
      "cvar_net_value_loss": 100,
      "evidence_adjustment": -243.75,
      "evidence_reliability": 0.25,
      "expected_evidence_adjusted_net_value": -18.75,
      "expected_observed_net_value": 225,
      "implementation_cost": 100,
      "initiative_id": "weak-moonshot",
      "probability_negative_net_value": 0.75,
      "risk_adjusted_value_score": -43.75
    }
  ],
  "method": "evidence_mixture_risk_adjusted_initiative_ranking_v1",
  "summary": {
    "initiative_count": 2,

Truncated for display — the full payload is 52 lines.

How it works

Forecasting & survival — Estimate when something completes or fails, with censoring and unresolved work handled honestly rather than dropped.

  1. 1 Freeze incremental value scenarios, fully loaded cost, one counterfactual and horizon, plus a prospectively defined evidence-reliability measure calibrated on resolved business cases.
  2. 2 Mix each initiative's scenario distribution with the skeptical prior using reliability as probability mass, then calculate adjusted expected net value, loss probability, CVaR, and risk-adjusted score.
  3. 3 Rank only initiatives clearing reliability, positive-value, and downside gates; route dependencies, constraints, and mutually exclusive choices to a portfolio optimizer rather than treating rank as allocation.

Before you trust it

Every tool in the catalog ships with the conditions under which its answer is meaningful — and the conditions under which it should abstain instead of guessing.

Assumptions & guardrails

  • Training examples precede their outcomes, censoring and unresolved work are represented, and deployment populations remain comparable to validation cohorts.
  • Reliability is an out-of-time estimate of decision relevance, not confidence, sample size, stakeholder support, or a score tuned until a preferred initiative wins.
  • A predictive interval or risk estimate is not a deadline promise, causal explanation, or individual-performance judgment.
  • Evidence-adjusted rank is not a causal finding or portfolio recommendation and must not convert engineering activity into monetary value.

Minimum evidence

  • initiatives: required and organization-defined
  • scenario_probabilities: at least 2 rows/items

How to validate it

Validate on future periods or held-out aggregate units, compare with a simple baseline, and require stability across plausible metric definitions and decision thresholds.

Calibrating it to your org

Same for everyone

The mathematical kernel, validation rules, method version, and JSON output semantics are organization-independent; no tenant-trained coefficients or company benchmark is embedded in the function.

Specific to you

  • aligned incremental value scenario matrix and out-of-time evidence-reliability calibration by comparable case class
  • counterfactual, horizon/currency, value attribution, cost boundary, scenario probabilities, skeptical prior, reliability definition, tail penalty, and evidence/value gates

Calibration workflow

  1. 1 Define the management decision, target outcome, aggregate unit, privacy boundary, cadence, and prediction/intervention horizon for this organization.
  2. 2 Build a tenant-scoped historical cohort using only information available before each prediction or decision; preserve zero periods, censoring, assignment probabilities, and unresolved outcomes when the method requires them.
  3. 3 Estimate statistical parameters on training history, but obtain costs, utilities, risk tolerance, practical-effect thresholds, capacity, and policy constraints from accountable decision owners.
  4. 4 Validate on later time windows or held-out aggregate units at the deployment grain, against a simple baseline and the function-specific validation strategy.
  5. 5 Deploy only if the returned decision clears evidence, overlap, calibration, robustness, and guardrail checks; warning, unsupported, schema-gap, and fallback decisions are abstentions.
  6. 6 Monitor realized outcomes, data drift, coverage, and decision regret; recalibrate at a governed cadence or after a detected regime/definition change, never merely because a stakeholder dislikes the result.

Call it from your AI

You don't wire up 388 tools in your MCP client. The GitRevio MCP server exposes 18 tools, three of which let an agent search the catalog, read a tool's schema, and run it — so the assistant finds this one on its own.

gitrevio_capabilities_search
  { "q": "rank initiatives using an explicit mixture" }
  → finds "rank_initiatives_evidence_adjusted_value"

gitrevio_capability_describe
  { "capability_id": "rank_initiatives_evidence_adjusted_value" }
  → returns the input schema and agent guidance shown on this page

gitrevio_capability_run
  { "capability_id": "rank_initiatives_evidence_adjusted_value", "arguments": { ... } }
  → returns the result shown above

Works in Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, Continue.dev, Goose and Aider. See the MCP server.

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