Decision Tools

Determine what kind of decision you're facing (no-brainer, apples vs. oranges, big, or hard)

Determine what domain you're operating in — simple, complicated, complex, or chaotic — and match your response

Determine whether this is a one-way or two-way door, and calibrate how much analysis it deserves

Restate the problem from a different angle to ensure you're solving the right thing

Move up (why?) or down (how?) levels to find the right altitude for your problem

Map internal strengths/weaknesses against external opportunities/threats to understand your strategic position

Drill vertically into a single causal chain by asking why repeatedly until you hit the root

Map all potential causes of a problem across categories to see the full landscape

Look beneath surface events to find the patterns, structures, and mental models driving them

Identify the 20% of causes responsible for 80% of the impact — know where to focus first

Break a complex problem into smaller, mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive sub-problems

Strip away assumptions and inherited wisdom to rebuild understanding from fundamental truths

Ask what would guarantee failure and design your solution to avoid those conditions

Systematically generate variations by Substituting, Combining, Adapting, Modifying, Putting to other use, Eliminating, Reversing

Generate novel solutions by combining dimensions of a problem in unusual ways

Move through a structured six-step creative process from problem to solution to action

Score options across weighted factors to identify a clear winner

Examine a decision from six cognitive perspectives — facts, emotions, risks, benefits, creativity, process

Quantify the economic trade-offs of each option to determine net value

Map sequential outcomes with probabilities and expected values to find the highest-value path

Construct multiple plausible futures and test how each option performs across them

Imagine the decision has already failed — work backward to find out why

Map the consequences of consequences — what happens after the first effect?

Trace your reasoning from raw data to conclusion to find where assumptions crept in

Surface hidden assumptions behind seemingly irreconcilable positions to find win-win solutions

Sort tasks by urgency and importance into four quadrants — do, schedule, delegate, eliminate

Sort tasks by return on effort — high impact / low effort wins first

Determine whether to optimise for speed or quality based on your confidence in the direction

Observe, Orient, Decide, Act — cycle rapidly through incomplete information to outpace your environment

Project yourself to age 80 and ask which choice you'd regret least — built for irreversible life decisions

Map the elements of a system and the relationships between them — the simplest systems mapping tool

Formally map cause-and-effect relationships with polarity to show how variables influence each other

Understand the mechanism behind exponential growth and vicious/virtuous cycles

Understand the mechanism that pushes back against change to create stability or resistance

Model how things accumulate (stocks) and change over time (flows) — the bathtub mental model

Visualise relationships between entities in a concept or domain to build shared understanding

Recognise recurring structural patterns — Fixes that Fail, Shifting the Burden, Limits to Growth, Tragedy of the Commons

Clarify who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed for each decision or task

Aggregate expert judgment through anonymous, iterative rounds — eliminating groupthink and dominance

Structure written communication top-down — lead with the answer, then support with grouped arguments

Give clear feedback without judgment — describe the situation, the specific behaviour, and its impact

Structure persuasive narratives about actions and outcomes — Situation, Task, Action, Result

Navigate conflict by expressing observations, feelings, needs, and requests without triggering defensiveness

Structure the receiving side of communication — reflect, paraphrase, clarify, validate