Decision Frameworks

While simple checklists work for everyday decisions, high-impact business environments require structured methodologies. Axiom supports multiple mathematical frameworks out of the box, allowing you to tailor the system to your team's specific strategic context.

1. Weighted Decision Matrix (Standard)

The primary framework in Axiom. This is a highly flexible model best used for open-ended comparables, such as vendor evaluation, candidate hiring, or infrastructure choices.

How it works:

  • You define specific scoring factors (e.g., Price, Quality, Speed).
  • You assign a localized weight to each node (e.g., Price is 2x more important than Speed).
  • The Option's final score is the sum product of the evaluations: Σ (Score_i × Weight_i).

2. RICE Scoring

The RICE framework was popularized by product teams to prioritize product roadmaps objectively.

How it works: RICE evaluates initiatives across four specific constraints:

  • Reach: How many users will this impact in a given timeframe?
  • Impact: How much will this move the needle when a user interacts with it? (Usually scored 3 for Massive, 2 for High, 1 for Medium, 0.5 for Low).
  • Confidence: How certain are you about your estimates? (Percentage: 100%, 80%, 50%).
  • Effort: How many "person-months" will this take to build?

Formula: (Reach × Impact × Confidence) / Effort

3. ICE Scoring

ICE is a leaner, faster variant of RICE, often used by growth marketing teams for rapid experimentation tracking.

How it works:

  • Impact: If this works, how big is the payoff? (1-10)
  • Confidence: How sure are we that this will work? (1-10)
  • Ease: How quickly and cheaply can we test this? (1-10, where 10 is easiest).

Formula: Impact × Confidence × Ease

4. WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First)

Derived from the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), WSJF is designed to sequence feature backlogs to produce maximum economic value in minimum time.

How it works: You must calculate the Cost of Delay (CoD), which comprises:

  • User-Business Value: Relative value to the customer or business.
  • Time Criticality: How does value decay over time? Will competitors beat us?
  • Risk Reduction-Opportunity Enablement (RR-OE): Does this mitigate a threat or unlock new capabilities?

You then divide the Cost of Delay by the Job Size (Duration).

Formula: (User-Business Value + Time Criticality + RR-OE) / Job Size

Axiom handles the aggregate calculations automatically as you supply the raw parameter inputs.

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