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Decision-making Patterns

Decide well, alone or as a group.

Methods for making better decisions, alone or as a group, for managers, product people, founders and teams. The cards help you frame what is being decided, settle who decides, widen and weigh the options under uncertainty, narrow to one choice and check for bias. Later suits cover deciding together, committing and explaining the call, and judging decisions by more than their outcomes.

54 cards · 9 suits · 5 recipes · 2 missions

What's inside

• Frame6Is it clear what is being decided?
• Who Decides6Is one person named to make the call?
• Widen6Have you considered more than one real option?
• Weigh6Can you say how sure you are?
• Narrow6Have you narrowed the options to one?
• Blind Spots6Are you sure bias isn't choosing for you?
• Decide Together6Has the group agreed how it will decide?
• Commit6Will people understand why you chose this?
• Learn6Are you judging the decision, not the outcome?

A few cards

Frame

Name The Real Question

Write the decision as one plain question before anyone argues about answers.

Widen

Not Just Whether

Turn a yes-or-no choice into a choice between several ways forward.

Narrow

Must-Haves Filter

Drop every option that fails a non-negotiable before you score anything.

One card in full

Decide Together

Pick The Rule First

Agree how the group will decide before anyone argues about what to decide.

Half the frustration in group decisions comes from people assuming different rules. One person thinks it's a vote, another thinks the boss decides after listening, a third thinks nothing happens until everyone agrees. Settling the rule first turns a fight about process into a short, calm agreement.

How to use it

1. Name the decision and the owner, if there is one (see One Name On It).
2. Choose the rule out loud: one decider after input, consent (no reasoned objection), majority vote, or unanimity.
3. Match the rule to the stakes: unanimity for things that need everyone's wholehearted effort, one decider for speed, consent for most team matters.
4. Agree the fallback if the rule stalls, such as "if no consent by Friday, the owner decides".
5. Write the rule at the top of the notes, then start on the options.

Example

A charity board about to choose a new office says up front: the chair decides after hearing every trustee, and any trustee may ask for their objection to be minuted. The discussion is shorter because nobody is campaigning for votes.

Watch out

• Changing the rule halfway because the likely result is unwelcome.
• Calling it consensus when one person actually decides. Be honest about the rule; Consent Decision is a distinct option, not a softer word for a vote.

Recipes

• Forecast Without Fooling Yourself: Start from how similar cases went, give estimates as honest ranges, check where the first number came from, and price the assumptions your plan rests on.
• Grade The Call, Not The Dice: Write down expectations and confidence before the result is known, review against that record, separate luck from judgement and keep score on your certainty.
• Long List To One Call: Generate options before judging, cut the ones that break a hard line, score the rest, settle the last pair and write down who chose what and why.
• Many Voices, One Answer: Agree the decision rule first, sort the dispute into facts, predictions and values, hear the strongest case for each side and against the leader, then adopt and commit.
• Unstick The Stalled Choice: Write down what is really being decided, split it into checkable parts, judge how reversible it is, put a date on it, get some distance and agree when you would stop.

Missions

• Close the loop on a group decision: from a discussion going round in circles to a named decider, an agreed rule, the real disagreement named, one choice with owners and a record everyone can point back to.
• Crack the call you keep avoiding: from a decision you keep putting off to the questions hidden inside it answered, a call you can defend on one page, and a date and signal that will tell you whether it was right.

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