{
  "schema": "vedokrok.public-item.v1",
  "release_id": "MHC-RPUB-20260920-75ad787a",
  "url": "/knowledge/stop-buying-certainty-that-cannot-change-the-choice",
  "id": "MHC-D-RESEARCH-0401",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "title": "Stop buying certainty that cannot change the choice",
  "summary": "Research can become a very respectable form of postponement.",
  "kind": "principle",
  "body": "Compare the likely benefit of better information with its cost, delay and opportunity cost. If even perfect information about the remaining uncertainty would not change the action, stop collecting it for this decision. If information could change the choice, target the specific uncertainty with the highest leverage rather than researching everything.",
  "limits": [
    "Information may have value beyond the current decision—compliance, safety, learning or future decisions—so do not discard it solely because current VOI is low."
  ],
  "topics": [
    "union-decision-analysis-calibration"
  ],
  "intents": [],
  "source_ids": [
    "RS-3E08C5D233E08B42"
  ],
  "evidence": [
    {
      "claim": "In decision analysis, perfect information about an uncertainty can have zero decision value when learning it would not change the preferred action.",
      "source_id": "RS-3E08C5D233E08B42",
      "role": "supports",
      "note": "Zero value in one model may reflect an incomplete objective or option set, so model quality should be checked first.",
      "locator": "Value-of-information examples"
    }
  ],
  "use_when": [
    "Analysis is expanding after the preferred action has become robust to the remaining uncertainty."
  ],
  "avoid_when": [
    "Information may have value beyond the current decision—compliance, safety, learning or future decisions—so do not discard it solely because current VOI is low."
  ],
  "example": "Do not postpone a reversible pilot to refine a forecast whose entire plausible range still supports running the pilot.",
  "check": "Every remaining research task has a named decision it could change or another explicit purpose.",
  "sources": [
    {
      "id": "RS-3E08C5D233E08B42",
      "title": "Perform Probabilistic Analysis and Identify Insights",
      "url": "https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781394283910.ch11"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [],
  "collections": [
    {
      "id": "RC-3EA4A5EF5790DD81",
      "title": "Model the decision before buying more certainty",
      "url": "/collections/model-the-decision-before-buying-more-certainty"
    }
  ]
}