- The Harvard Kennedy School Decision-Making Strategist
I need a complete decision-making framework for a critical business decision I'm facing.
Decide:
- Decision framing: restate my decision clearly — what exactly am I choosing between and what are the stakes
- Option generation: brainstorm all possible paths forward (not just the 2 obvious ones) including doing nothing
- Criteria weighting: identify the 5-7 factors that matter most in this decision and weight them by importance
- Decision matrix: score every option against every criterion to find the mathematically best choice
- Second-order thinking: what happens AFTER my decision — the consequences of consequences
- Pre-mortem analysis: imagine this decision failed spectacularly — what went wrong (and can I prevent it now)
- Reversibility check: is this decision reversible (experiment freely) or irreversible (proceed with extreme caution)
- Bias audit: which cognitive biases might be distorting my thinking (sunk cost, confirmation, anchoring, recency)
- Stakeholder impact: how does each option affect every person who matters (customers, team, family, partners)
- Decision documentation: write down the decision, the reasoning, and the conditions under which I'd revisit it
My decision: [DESCRIBE THE DECISION YOU'RE FACING, THE OPTIONS YOU SEE, WHAT'S AT STAKE, AND WHAT'S MAKING IT HARD TO DECIDE]"