Use case

Team prioritization when votes need volume knobs

Roadmaps and internal priorities are rarely solved by one-person-one-vote. Nicolas lets teams spend voice credits across alternatives, so strong conviction, principled opposition, and mild agreement show up differently.

Start a decisionSee the mechanism

Nicolas mechanism signals

These concepts follow the mathematical contract used by the app.

Convex cost

cost = c * sum a_ij^2

Voice budget

sum a_ij^2 <= B

Outcome rule

shifted softmax over support

The prioritization problem

Teams often have more plausible work than capacity. Dot voting and ranking tools can flatten the signal by treating a mild preference and a must-have priority as similar inputs.

Nicolas asks participants to allocate intensity under a finite budget, which helps the team separate broad support, deep conviction, and meaningful opposition.

How Nicolas keeps the signal accountable

Vote cost grows quadratically. A participant can spend heavily on a priority, but that choice is visible as a cost, which rewards careful allocation instead of unlimited enthusiasm.

The result screen separates aggregate support, outcome probabilities, and gross quadratic costs so teams can inspect both the priority signal and the accounting behind it.

Good fits and poor fits

Good fits include roadmap tradeoffs, research agenda selection, policy prioritization, budget attention, and team-level decisions where participants understand the alternatives.

Poor fits include decisions with no real tradeoff, questions requiring private ballots, or choices where leadership has already made the decision and only wants a symbolic survey.

Use cases

Where this decision model helps

Product roadmaps

Compare features, fixes, and bets when the team needs conviction-weighted input.

Research agendas

Let researchers express strong preferences without turning every planning session into a debate.

Internal policy choices

Measure intensity around workplace or operating decisions that affect people differently.

FAQ

How is Nicolas different from dot voting?

Dot voting usually gives participants a fixed number of identical dots. Nicolas uses real-valued vote intensity with quadratic costs, so stronger preferences are possible but increasingly expensive.

Can participants oppose options?

Yes. Nicolas supports positive and negative vote intensities, so participants can express support for one alternative and opposition to another.

Does every team decision need quadratic voting?

No. Nicolas is most useful when intensity matters and alternatives are clear. Simple operational choices may not need a full preference-intensity mechanism.

Keep reading

Continue with adjacent concepts and practical Nicolas workflows.

Quadratic votingLearn why stronger votes become progressively more expensive.How Nicolas worksInspect costs, delegation, and outcome probabilities.