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Skills Hub · Judgment
Good teams don't make perfect decisions — they make visible ones, learn fast, and avoid betting big on what they can undo cheaply.
Half of bad decisions are good answers to the wrong question. Before weighing options, write one sentence: "We are deciding X, by Y date, and Z gets the final call." If you can't write it, you're not ready to decide — you're still discovering.
List three to five criteria first (cost, speed, quality, risk, morale), then generate options A/B/C. Reversing the order invites advocacy: people pick a favorite, then invent criteria to defend it.
Ask of every decision: is this a door we can walk back through? Reversible calls deserve speed. Irreversible ones deserve ceremony.
Before a significant commitment, run the 20-minute exercise: "It's six months from now and this failed. What happened?" Every cause the team names becomes a mitigation you can add today. It's the cheapest insurance a leader can buy.
Capture owner, date, criteria, the option chosen, reversibility, known risks, and the review date. Two payoffs: decisions stop getting re-litigated, and six months later you can separate bad outcomes from bad process — which is how judgment actually improves. The decision brief, log, and pre-mortem templates are free.
