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Decision making
Compare your options, weigh the evidence and check what could change your decision.
Start with a practical guide
Clarify an unclear work task
Turn a vague request into a result someone can check. Separate facts, assumptions and open questions, then choose a question or test that could change your next step.
Read the story LongreadIs It Worth Upgrading Your Device?
Before replacing a slow device, name what the new one should fix. Then compare its price, support and repair life, and any safe maintenance that could help.
Read the story LongreadDecide when you're overloaded
Make a decision when your attention is stretched. Define what matters, check what could change your choice and set a stopping point for research.
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Check a decision before you commit
Choose a review aid for an uncertain explanation, a numerical estimate or a persuasive description. Keep a decision note with evidence, limits and a reason to revise. English pilot for editorial and usability review, not an approved intervention.
Model the decision before buying more certainty
Turn important choices into inspectable objectives, uncertainties, sensitivity tests, information-value questions and scored forecasts instead of intuitive spreadsheets with hidden assumptions.
Reduce judgment noise without erasing useful disagreement
Make repeated expert judgments more consistent by separating independent assessment, structured criteria, discussion, aggregation and legitimate perspective differences.
Check what a study can actually tell you
Inspect sampling, uncertainty and analysis choices before converting a statistical result into a decision.
Make the numbers answer the right question
Check percentages, averages, units and uncertainty before a neat calculation turns into a misleading decision.
Challenge the leading explanation before confidence hardens
Add structured analytic techniques for assumptions, competing hypotheses, disconfirming evidence, indicators, adversarial challenge and low-probability/high-impact scenarios.
Re-decide continuation from today
Help people decide whether to continue, stop, or pivot an already costly course of action without letting irrecoverable past investment dominate the next decision.
71 ideas
Confirmation bias
Your favourite explanation should not get an easier exam.
Read the idea ConceptAnchoring effect
The first number has an unfair talent for becoming the centre of the conversation.
Read the idea ConceptFraming effect
Ninety per cent success and ten per cent failure can describe the same result. Your choice may not treat them that way.
Read the idea HeuristicRun a test that could prove you wrong
A test that only your favourite explanation can celebrate is usually not much of a test.
Read the idea HeuristicEstimate before the number arrives
Give yourself a reference point before someone else — or an AI — gives you one.
Read the idea HeuristicFlip the frame, keep the facts
Change the wording without changing the decision. If your preference moves, inspect why.
Read the idea ProtocolWrite the objectives before inventing the options
The options you notice first should not get to define what you care about.
Read the idea QuestionSeparate the end from the means used to reach it
'Use AI' is not an objective until you say what it is supposed to improve.
Read the idea ProtocolDraw decisions, uncertainties and value on one page
A spreadsheet can calculate a model whose logic nobody can see.
Read the idea ProtocolUse a decision tree when sequence changes what you know
Order matters when tomorrow's decision gets to learn from today's outcome.
Read the idea ProtocolSweep one uncertain assumption across a plausible range
A single estimate hides how much the answer depends on being lucky about the assumption.
Read the idea HeuristicFind the assumption value where the choice flips
The important number may not be your best estimate; it may be the number where you would choose differently.
Read the idea ProtocolRank assumptions by decision leverage
Not every uncertain number deserves equal research budget.
Read the idea QuestionAsk what perfect information could change
Information has decision value only through a choice it can improve.
Read the idea PrincipleStop buying certainty that cannot change the choice
Research can become a very respectable form of postponement.
Read the idea ProtocolBuild an outside-view reference class
Your plan is unique. Your kind of mistake often is not.
Read the idea QuestionAudit the reference class before trusting its base rate
A base rate is only as relevant as the cases allowed into its denominator.
Read the idea ChecklistDefine the forecast event before assigning a probability
A probability cannot rescue an event nobody defined.
Read the idea ProtocolScore your probability forecasts instead of remembering the wins
A forecaster who remembers only being right has invented a very generous scoring rule.
Read the idea PrincipleSeparate calibration from sharpness
A forecast can be bold without being calibrated, and calibrated by being timid.
Read the idea ProtocolMake the first judgment before the group talks
The first voice in the room should not silently become part of everybody else's evidence.
Read the idea PrincipleHide first scores until everyone has one
A score can become an anchor even when nobody says a word.
Read the idea ProtocolDiscuss the reasons, then re-rate privately
Discussion is useful for finding what you missed; consensus is not its only valid output.
Read the idea ProtocolDecompose the judgment before scoring the whole
A single number can hide five different arguments.
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Critical thinking and evidence
Test claims, separate evidence from interpretation and ask questions that can change what you believe.
70 ideasSystems thinking and invention
Map how parts of a system affect each other. Find conflicting needs and explore different solutions.
91 ideasNegotiation and conflict
Prepare alternatives, compare possible agreements and work through disagreements.
82 ideas