You will put an important current decision through the module's tools.
Every important decision ends up written down somewhere: an email, a chat message, a line in the minutes. Usually what gets written is just the outcome. "We'll go with Vendor B." Three months later, when someone asks why, nobody remembers what else was considered, what the risks were or what would have changed the plan. This exercise produces a one-page record of a real decision that answers all of those questions, and uses each tool from this module along the way. It takes about thirty-five minutes.
Pick a decision you are facing now, at work or in your personal life, that matters enough to be worth thirty-five minutes, such as a new role, a large purchase, a change of supplier or a move. It should be something not yet decided, so the review can still change it.
Set up a single page, in a document or a spreadsheet, with five sections to fill in order: the decision in one sentence, door type, options, pre-mortem, and the final record with reasons and warning signs.
Write the decision as a question, then classify it using lesson 6.1, One-way doors and two-way doors. Ask how much it would cost, and how long it would take, to reverse it if it went wrong. Write one of three labels: two-way door, one-way door, or one-way door that could be made two-way. For the last, note how: a trial, a shorter contract, a pilot with one team.
If it is clearly a two-way door, you may not need the rest of the review. Make the call quickly and set a date to check it. The rest of this exercise is for decisions that are hard to undo.
Next, use lesson 6.3, Widen your options before you choose. If your decision is framed as yes or no, rewrite it around the goal behind it. Then ask what else the same money or time could do, and what you would do if the current options all vanished. List at least three options, including at least one you had not considered before today. Add a short note on the cost and main risk of each.
Pick the leading option. It is fine if it is the one you started with. The point is that you chose it from several.
Follow lesson 6.2, Imagine it failed: the pre-mortem. Imagine it is a year from now, you went with the leading option and it has failed. Write every reason you can think of, alone, for five to ten minutes. If others are affected by the decision, ask one or two of them to do the same and share their reasons one at a time.
Mark the three reasons that seem most likely or most damaging. For each, decide whether to change the plan or set a warning sign.
The last section is the one you will come back to. Write the decision you have made, the two or three reasons that tipped it, the changes the pre-mortem led to, and the warning signs you will watch. Each warning sign needs a measurable trigger and an action, along with a date to check it.
Then put a review date in your calendar. Module 8 will turn this kind of record into a regular habit.
Hafiz has to decide whether to replace the point-of-sale system across all three cafes before Chinese New Year. The current system is slow, and a vendor has offered a discount if he signs by the end of the month. The figures in this example are made up.
Door type: one-way door that could be made two-way. The vendor wants a three-year contract, but a single-outlet trial is possible if he gives up the discount.
Options: replace all three outlets now with the discount; trial at one outlet now and decide on the others after a month; wait until after Chinese New Year and compare two vendors; keep the current system and pay for the vendor's speed upgrade, which costs about S$1,500. He had not considered the last option until he asked what he would do if the new vendor disappeared.
Leading option: trial at one outlet now, at a loss of the discount, which he works out at about S$2,000 across three outlets.
Pre-mortem reasons, top three: staff not trained in time for the holiday rush; the new system failing to talk to the accounting software; the trial outlet being too quiet to reveal problems. Changes: run the trial at the busiest outlet, and get written confirmation of the accounting integration before signing. Warning sign: if more than two payment failures happen in any week of the trial, pause the rollout and call the vendor.
Decision record: trial at the busiest outlet from next week, decide on the other two by the end of January. Reasons: holiday risk is too high for a three-outlet switch, and the S$2,000 discount is cheap insurance against a three-year mistake. Review date: 31 January.
A finished review fits on one page. It names the door type, lists at least three options with costs, shows the top three pre-mortem reasons and what was done about each, and ends with a decision record that includes reasons, warning signs with triggers and a review date. Someone reading it in six months should be able to see what you knew and why you chose what you did.
Decisions affect other people, and the review is more useful once one of them has seen it. The activity below asks you to complete your review and share it with someone affected by the decision.
Complete the decision review template for one important work or personal decision and share it with one person affected.
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