A proposed decision
The question being considered, the available evidence, existing analysis and the reasons currently supporting it.
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Decision DiligenceThe independent, structured testing of an important decision before commitment.
Independent challenge before commitmentTest the decision.
Before it becomes a commitment.
Cortavian independently tests whether an important business decision should proceed, change, pause or stop — before you commit. You receive one written recommendation and the reasoning behind it.
What Cortavian does
Independent testing of an important business decision.
You bring Cortavian a proposed decision and the evidence behind it. We test whether the decision stands up before money, time, reputation or organisational momentum become committed to it.
The decision itself
Its framing, assumptions, evidence, alternatives, risks, dependencies and the strongest credible case against it.
One written recommendation
Proceed, change, pause or stop — with the reasoning, confidence, conditions and what would change the answer made explicit.
Acquiring a business? Before capital is committed and the next several years become tied to the deal, test the decision itself.
Explore Acquisition Decision DiligenceAn acquisition decision
The question presented is not always the decision that needs answering.
The decision presented
Should we acquire Company X?
The decision that may actually need answering
Do we need this capability at all — and, if we do, is acquiring Company X the best way to obtain it?
The financial, legal and commercial diligence on Company X can all be excellent. None of it can answer a decision that was never properly formed.
That missing job is Decision Diligence.
Cortavian independently examines the decision itself before commitment: how it is framed, what it assumes, which alternatives remain credible and what the evidence can genuinely support.
The value is finding the wrong question, weak assumption or better alternative before capital, time, reputation and organisational momentum become attached to the answer.
01 / The gap
The work can be rigorous.
The judgement can still be wrong.
Major decisions can be surrounded by advisers, analysis, spreadsheets and meetings while the judgement connecting them remains insufficiently challenged.
Financial diligence tests the numbers. Legal diligence tests the position. Commercial diligence tests the market. But confirmation bias, organisational momentum and political commitment can survive all three — particularly when the wrong decision has been framed at the outset.
02 / The discipline
Decision Diligence
The independent, structured testing of an important decision before commitment.
Conventional diligence
Tests the asset, the numbers, the legal position, the market or the plan.
Decision diligence
Tests the judgement being made from them.
03 / The method
One governed process.
One accountable judgement.
Cortavian makes the reasoning visible: what is known, what is assumed, where the case is weak and what would change the answer.
- 01
Clarify the Decision
Establish what decision actually needs to be made and what is genuinely at stake.
- 02
Test the Case
Challenge assumptions, evidence, alternatives, dependencies and the preferred logic.
- 03
Force the Opposing Case
Construct and test the strongest credible argument against the emerging recommendation.
- 04
Reach an Accountable Judgement
Set out one recommendation, its confidence, risks, conditions and what would change it.
04 / The output
Executive decision report
A recommendation built to be examined.
The client receives a concise executive decision report built for a founder, board, investment committee or leadership team. The recommendation can be used, challenged and governed because the reasoning behind it remains visible.
Decision record / confidential
Executive judgementProceed — subject to three explicit conditions
01Recommended decision
02Decision thesis
03Material assumptions
04Evidence strength
05Risk of action
06Risk of inaction
07Structured dissent
08Conditions for approval
09What would change the recommendation
Representative report structure — not a client result
05 / Engagements
Complete method at every level
Scope follows the decision.
Not a weaker standard.
Every paid engagement tests the full governing judgement. After Decision Triage, Cortavian recommends the proportional route based on what is at stake, the evidence that needs examining, the complexity of the decision and the reporting or governance required.
See engagement routes01 / Focused£2,500
One bounded decision. One complete test.
Concise Decision Record with recommendation, reasoning, conditions and change triggers.
02 / Full£7,500–£12,500Deeper evidence closure. Full executive report.
Targeted challenge, controlled re-testing and a board-ready record.
03 / BoardBespokeMultiple decisions. Formal governance.
Tailored support across stakeholders and linked commitments.
Bring the decision. Cortavian recommends the scope.
Use Decision Triage Decision Triage is the free suitability and proportionality step before any paid engagement. It does not analyse the decision or recommend whether you should proceed.
06 / When to use Cortavian
Before the point of
difficult reversal.
01
You are close to acquiring a business but want the investment case independently challenged.Explore Acquisition Decision Diligence
02
Your leadership team appears aligned, but different assumptions may be hiding beneath that alignment.
03
You have invested significant time or money and need an independent test of whether continuing remains rational.
04
You have advisers analysing different parts of a decision but nobody testing the judgement connecting them.
05
You are about to make a commitment that will be expensive, political or operationally difficult to reverse.
07 / Inside the Decision
The apparent question is rarely the whole decision.
Representative examples of how decision diligence changes what is tested.
Apparent question
Should we acquire this business?
The deeper decision
Whether the investment thesis still holds without the assumptions needed to justify the price.
What decision diligence would test
- Whether strategic fit survives a lower-growth case.
- Which assumptions depend on post-deal execution.
- Whether deal momentum is distorting the judgement.
Apparent question
Should we enter this market?
The deeper decision
Whether the company has a genuine right to win, rather than evidence that demand exists.
What decision diligence would test
- Whether demand is accessible to this business.
- Which capabilities must exist before entry.
- Whether the case still works without early scale.
Apparent question
Should we continue the programme?
The deeper decision
Whether the remaining case is rational on its own merits, independent of what has already been spent.
What decision diligence would test
- Whether the expected value remains credible.
- Which benefits have evidence rather than advocacy.
- Whether the cost of stopping is being overstated.
08 / Why Cortavian
Challenge is not a final check.
It is part of the method.
Cortavian is designed to resist the pressures that make important decisions difficult to question from within.
- 01The decision is clarified before it is analysed.
- 02Evidence and assumptions are kept separate.
- 03Dissent is required rather than invited.
- 04The strongest opposing case must be confronted.
- 05One recommendation emerges, not a collection of opinions.
- 06The conditions that would invalidate it remain visible.
09 / Founder
Amardeep Malik / Founder of Cortavian
Rigour around the commitment. Independence before it.
Amardeep Malik has spent much of his career around major commercial and technology commitments — decisions involving significant money, organisational consequence and difficult-to-reverse choices.
What repeatedly stood out was an imbalance: enormous rigour could be applied to the transaction, negotiation, numbers and implementation, while the judgement that preceded the commitment was subjected to far less independent challenge. Cortavian grew from that observation.
Read about Amardeep MalikA live strategic decision
Have a decision
worth testing?
Cortavian can examine the judgement behind an important decision before your organisation commits.
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