Protocol
Use regret as a cross-scenario lens, not prophecy
Regret compares an option with what would have been best in each scenario.
When it fits
- When decision makers care more about avoiding a disastrous miss than maximizing one forecasted payoff.
When to avoid it
- Scenarios and robust-decision tools organize uncertainty; they do not predict the future. Preserve governance, evidence and explicit review triggers.
Why it matters
For each plausible future, estimate how much worse each strategy performs than the best option for that future. Use the pattern to discuss trade-offs, not as a magic single score.
Steps
- Define plausible futures.
- Estimate outcome by strategy and future.
- Compute or qualitatively rank regret within each future.
- Discuss severe and persistent regret regions.
An example
One vendor choice wins the base case but has extreme regret if data residency rules tighten; a hybrid option has smaller regret across all cases.
Check your result
The decision discussion sees where each strategy would be painful in hindsight without claiming those futures are forecast probabilities.
Keep this limit in mind
- Scenarios and robust-decision tools organize uncertainty; they do not predict the future. Preserve governance, evidence and explicit review triggers.
Connected ideas
Useful withAsk whether you are changing a parameter or a rule
Evidence and sources
Supports
Robust Decision Making uses exploratory analysis to stress-test strategies over many plausible futures and seek strategies that perform acceptably across uncertainty rather than optimizing a single prediction.
Full RDM can require substantial modeling; lightweight cards should not claim equivalent rigor.
Robust Decision Making (RDM) · Abstract and method overview