The Trade-Off

Force choices to find what actually matters.

The Trade-Off exercise forces you to make the choices you've been avoiding. You start with a feature set, and in each round you must eliminate something. What survives every round of sacrifice is your core — the non-negotiable. What gets cut is your road map.

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How to run this

  1. List your features or components. Be specific — "good UX" is not a feature.
  2. In Round 1, cut half. Write your reasoning.
  3. In Round 2, cut half again.
  4. In Round 3, cut until you're at your Minimum Viable Offer.
  5. Review what was cut: this is your v2 road map.

The Trade-Off

The Studio · inspired by MoSCoW and weighted scoring frameworks
The Studio · Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship
START
Full Feature Inventory
List every feature, component, or capability you're considering.
ROUND 1 — CUT HALF
After Round 1
What survived? What was the reasoning for each cut?
ROUND 2 — CUT HALF
After Round 2
What survived the second cut?
ROUND 3 — MVO
Minimum Viable Offer
What's left? This is your core.
ROAD MAP
What Was Cut (v2 onwards)
Everything eliminated — ranked by when it should come back. This is your road map.
INSIGHT
Core Value
What do all the survivors have in common? That's what you're actually building.

Offer: __________________________________    Date: _____________    MVO in one sentence: ____________________

Common mistake

Cutting things that were never real priorities anyway. The hard cuts are the ones people will argue about. If nobody objects to what's being cut, you're not forcing real choices.

What good looks like

Survivors that someone on the team initially resisted cutting but couldn't justify keeping once forced to choose. Those are the real core.

When to move on

When you have a Minimum Viable Offer you could describe in one sentence and ship in under 4 weeks.

Try it interactively with WAiDE

WAiDE will force you through each round of cuts — asking the hard questions about why you're keeping what you're keeping. You'll leave with an MVO and a session report.

Start The Trade-Off with WAiDE →

More canvases

Force Field Analysis → Rapid Experiment → Lean Canvas →
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