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The story of the people from the valley of the small hills
In the valley of the small hills lived people who were convinced that they were at the highest point in the world.
Gentle hills rose up around them. They were visible from everywhere. Some seemed higher than others. But they all ended below the horizon.
No one had ever climbed them. It hadn't seemed necessary. Because from the valley, everything looked complete.
So the people began to talk. They stood together, looked at the hills and wondered which one was the highest.
Everyone contributed their opinion. Some referred to their experience. Others referred to their feelings. Still others referred to what sounded plausible.
In the end, they voted.
And they decided together: "Our hills are the top of the world."
This certainty was not the result of measurement. Not from calculation. But from agreement.
It came from gut feeling and majority. And that was precisely where its stability lay.
Because a shared assumption does not feel like an assumption. It feels like truth.
From that moment on, decisions were made on this basis. Paths were planned. Resources were distributed. Directions determined.
Not based on what was actually the highest point. But based on what felt most plausible to everyone.
And so they lived at the foot of the small hills - convinced they were at the top.
Not because it had been verified. But because they had agreed on it together.
Closing words from Sascha Rissel, CEO
The story of the valley of small hills does not describe a fictional problem. It describes the reality of strategic decisions.
In companies, institutions and the public sector, many decisions are not based on complete knowledge of the decision space, but on experience, plausibility and consensus. These mechanisms are human. They are efficient. And they are sufficient - as long as the decision space is small.
But as soon as decisions become part of a combinatorial system, the structure changes fundamentally. What seems plausible is then not necessarily optimal. What feels right is then merely the best within the visible section - not within the actual overall space.
The decisive difference lies not in the quality of the people involved, but in the completeness of the decision-making basis. Without the ability to systematically analyze the entire decision space, every decision remains an approximation.
Only when the complete space becomes visible does a new form of certainty emerge: not through agreement, but through structure. Not through conviction, but through calculation.
The global optimum is not a question of perspective. It is a property of the decision space itself.
Our task is to make this space visible.
Sascha Rissel
CEO, mAInthink GmbH
Sascha Rissel is an entrepreneur, founder and CEO of mAInthink GmbH, as well as a Board Member of KI Bundesverband Hessen and a WEF SME Member. For more than 20 years, he has been developing, scaling and optimizing technology-driven business models at the intersection of corporate strategy, technology and mathematical decision optimization.
With StratePlan, mAInthink is developing a Decision Intelligence solution for the mathematical optimization of CAPEX, capital allocation and investment portfolios in fixed assets. The objective is to calculate the optimal combination of investment projects under real-world budget, resource and dependency constraints, enabling organizations to generate greater impact from their existing capital.
Sascha Rissel's work focuses on CAPEX Optimization, Capital Allocation Optimization, Project Portfolio Optimization, Multi-Year CAPEX Strategy Planning and Live Boardroom Simulation. StratePlan combines mathematical optimization, algorithmic decision models and Hybrid AI to translate complex investment decisions into measurable business performance.
With CAPEX Live Boardroom Simulation, changes in budgets, priorities and constraints can be recalculated during a board meeting, alternative portfolios can be compared, and trade-offs can be made immediately visible. This transforms a sequential planning process into a new decision loop: question, calculation, comparison and decision within the same meeting.
Through the StratePlan Online Decision Service, Sascha Rissel also advances the concept of “Decision Intelligence 4 All”: making mathematical decision optimization accessible not only to large corporations, but also to mid-sized companies and the public sector.
Sascha Rissel regularly contributes his expertise through professional publications on Project Portfolio Management (PPM), CAPEX Optimization and Decision Intelligence. His work includes specialist contributions within the professional environment of the GPM German Association for Project Management, and he is a specialist author for ControllingPortal, writing about mathematically grounded approaches to investment, portfolio and corporate performance management.
His work focuses on measurable impact, transparent and robust decision-making, and transforming highly complex mathematical models into practical solutions for industry, business and the public sector.
His guiding principle: bringing strategy, technology and impact together consistently – and turning decisions into measurable performance.