Investment judgments go outdated through condition drift — when facts that once supported a decision change — and through judgment supersession, when later outcomes or experience revise or replace the original logic.
Condition drift
Condition drift is change in the facts that once made a judgment reasonable. Market structure, regulation, competition, retention economics, integration capacity — any of these can stop matching the original case.
The old conclusion can stay historically correct and still be unsafe to reuse.
Judgment supersession
Supersession is when later experience revises or replaces an earlier judgment. A risk accepted then may look underpriced now. A pass may look too cautious.
Skip recording supersession, and teams keep retrieving obsolete logic as current policy.
When not to reuse a precedent
- Core supporting conditions no longer hold
- The original outcome contradicted the judgment
- Later decisions superseded the prior call
- Failure conditions noted at the time are present in the current deal
For PE teams
Keeping past judgment without transfer caution creates false confidence. “Have we seen this before?” is not enough. Ask whether the judgment that applied then still applies under today's conditions.