Why the second option is usually the right one

The first option is the one you walked in with. It has momentum, a sponsor and a spreadsheet. The second option is the one you would choose if you started today, with what you now know. In our experience the second is right more often than the first, and it is almost never on the table until someone asks for it. So we ask for it. Before any analysis, we write down the decision as a single question and list every answer that a reasonable board could choose. Then we argue for each one in turn, as if it were ours.