Risk reward map

How the risk reward map works

When several courses of action are open to you, comparing them properly is harder than it sounds. Options rarely arrive on the same scale, and the one described most confidently tends to win. This 3x3 grid puts them on the same footing: add each option, place it by the risk and the cost it carries, and mark the reward it would bring.

Include doing nothing. It is your baseline, it is always available, and sometimes it wins. A comparison that omits it flatters every other option on the board.

What the axes are asking

• Risk and cost combines two things that usually move together: what you would have to commit, and how likely you are to lose it. A cheap option that probably fails and an expensive option that probably works can end up in the same place
• Reward is the value if it goes well. Be specific about who receives it and when, because a large reward arriving too late to matter is not a large reward

The options worth arguing about are the high-risk, high-reward ones. Low risk and high reward is not a decision, it is an obvious yes, and if you have placed something there you should check whether you have understated its risk.

Using the risk reward map in a session

Have each person place the options independently before comparing. Where two people put the same option in different cells, the gap is almost always a difference in assumptions rather than a difference in judgement, and surfacing it is worth more than the map itself.

Nothing is sent anywhere, so the map is safe to use with confidential options.

This kind of trade-off is at the centre of our strategy and decision-making simulations, where teams commit to a course of action and then live with the consequences of it.