ma

M&A - Decision Hygiene

Why this domain is the highest-stakes bias environment

M&A combines every ingredient for systematic poor judgment:

1. Deal completion bias Teams working a deal develop an emotional and professional investment in closing it. The due diligence process creates commitment escalation - every hour spent makes the sunk cost larger and the exit more painful. The team that should kill the deal is the team most motivated to close it.

2. Artificial time pressure M&A timelines are often compressed by competitive dynamics, seller pressure, or banker incentives. Compressed timelines kill independent evaluation: dimensions bleed into each other, dissent gets suppressed, the deal narrative accelerates past the questions it hasn't answered.

3. Synergy theater Synergy projections are the most consistently overestimated figures in corporate finance. McKinsey: 70% of M&A deals fail to create value. Synergies projected during deal enthusiasm are rarely stress-tested against the specific execution requirements of THIS integration.

4. Committee dynamics and noise Investment committees produce high-noise evaluations when members hear each other's opinions before scoring. The first speaker anchors. Seniority distorts junior members' positions. The noise audit (Kahneman, Noise, 2021) reveals how much judgment variance is occurring - a number that is almost always shocking.

5. Integration as afterthought Post-acquisition integration is where value is created or destroyed, yet it receives a fraction of the analytical attention of the deal terms. A pre-mortem on the integration - not the deal - is the highest-value intervention available.

Two modes

Mode 1: Single evaluator (/sentinel ma [decision])

Full MAP evaluation of a target or deal, using the 6 M&A-specific dimensions. Runs: structure-builder -> questioner (MA1-MA8 biases) -> reality-checker (base rates) -> failure-finder (integration pre-mortem).

Mode 2: Committee noise audit (/sentinel ma noise-audit)

Multi-member evaluation protocol. Each member scores independently. Sentinel measures noise between members. Identifies which dimensions have the most disagreement and why. This is the commercial flagship - the number that silences the room.

Key principle: Integration first

Most M&A analysis focuses on the deal. Sentinel focuses on the integration. The deal terms are visible. The integration complexity is hidden. A pre-mortem on integration is more valuable than a pre-mortem on deal terms because the failure modes are less obvious and more preventable.

Templates

Template	When to use	Read from
ma-target-evaluation.md	Full MAP evaluation of an acquisition target	skills/ma/templates/ma-target-evaluation.md
ic-memo-structured.md	Investment committee memo with MAP scoring embedded	skills/ma/templates/ic-memo-structured.md
noise-audit-committee.md	Multi-member noise measurement for any committee	skills/ma/templates/noise-audit-committee.md
integration-premortem.md	Pre-mortem on post-acquisition integration specifically	skills/ma/templates/integration-premortem.md
legal-dd-review.md	Structured legal DD - risk matrix, disclosure protocol, negotiation triage	skills/ma/templates/legal-dd-review.md

Mode 3: Legal counsel (/sentinel ma legal [scope])

Specialized layer for M&A lawyers. When legal context is detected:

• Read skills/ma/biases.yaml for standard M&A biases (MA1-MA8)
• Read skills/ma/lawyer-biases.yaml for lawyer-specific biases (LA1-LA7)
• Read skills/ma/lawyer-frameworks.yaml for legal DD frameworks

Key lens: lawyers are trained to IDENTIFY risks, not to assess their PROBABILITY. Sentinel forces probability weighting on every legal risk — the column in DD reports that almost never gets filled.

Auto-activates when context mentions: counsel, legal DD, SPA, reps and warranties, disclosure letter, conditions precedent, legal opinion, closing.

Commands

Command	Route
/sentinel ma [target description]	Full single-evaluator analysis
/sentinel ma noise-audit	Committee mode - collect independent scores
/sentinel ma integration [deal]	Integration pre-mortem only
/sentinel ma memo	IC memo with MAP scoring
/sentinel ma legal [DD scope]	Legal DD with LA1-LA7 bias lens + risk matrix
/sentinel ma legal negotiation	Negotiation triage - expected value per open point
/sentinel ma legal disclosure	Disclosure letter review protocol