Simple User Guide
1. 🧭 Start with the decision, not the answer
Open My Decisions, choose New Decision, and write one clear sentence describing what must be decided, by whom, and by when.
These ratings help you decide how much analysis is worth doing. A high-stakes choice that is hard to reverse deserves more discipline than a low-cost experiment.
2. 📊 Compare options with a weighted matrix
Open the Decision Matrix. List the criteria before scoring the alternatives. Give more weight to criteria that truly matter. Score every option against the same criteria. Treat the result as structured evidence, not as an automatic answer.
3. 🔎 Run the cognitive-bias scan
Check any bias that could be influencing the decision. Then record a mitigation. Useful mitigations include asking for disconfirming evidence, getting an independent estimate, delaying a commitment long enough to reframe the question, or asking a dissenting reviewer to challenge the preferred option.
4. 🌦️ Model uncertainty
Use the Scenario Lab to create plausible upside, base and downside conditions. Add a probability and impact to each scenario. The expected-value result helps you see whether one attractive outcome is dominating your thinking.
Probabilities should normally total 100%.
5. 🧯 Conduct a pre-mortem
Imagine that the decision failed badly one year from now. Write down what likely caused the failure, how serious it would be, and what action can reduce or detect that risk now. Pre-mortems are especially helpful when a group is overly enthusiastic.
6. 💡 Check opportunity cost
Do not compare an option only with doing nothing. Compare it with the next-best use of money, time, attention and strategic flexibility. Record what you give up when you commit to the selected path.
7. 🤝 Map stakeholders
List stakeholders, their decision power, level of interest, current stance and the engagement action you need. Use this to surface incentive conflicts and information that may be missing from the core team.
8. 🔭 Use regret minimization when the future is uncertain
For each option, consider its best plausible outcome, worst plausible outcome, likely future regret, and the smallest reversible step. This is particularly useful when every option has meaningful uncertainty.
9. 🎯 Build confidence calibration
Record forecasts as probabilities, then later record whether the event occurred. The app calculates a Brier score. Lower scores indicate better probabilistic calibration over time. Do not use a single forecast to judge yourself; calibration becomes useful across many resolved forecasts.
10. 📓 Keep a decision journal
Before the outcome is known, document what you believe, what you assume, your confidence, and what evidence would change your mind. After the outcome, record lessons. This helps separate decision quality from outcome luck.
11. 🎓 Practice with the 1,000-case learning lab
Use filters for region, category and difficulty. View Only lets you study a case without changing it. Save As My Plan creates an editable action plan. Save As My Decision creates a private decision workspace using the case as a starting point.
The cases are fictionalized educational scenarios based on common real-world decision patterns. They are not claims about actual organizations or people.
12. 🗺️ Turn analysis into action
Use Action Plans to record objectives, actions, assumptions and review checkpoints. A decision is not complete until someone owns the next action and the team knows when the decision will be reviewed.
13. 📈 Review your decision practice
The Reports page summarizes decisions, categories, statuses, confidence and use of decision tools. Export the decision register to CSV whenever you want an offline copy.
14. 🔐 Protect your account
Use Settings to change your password after signing in. If you forget your password, use the email reset workflow. Never share purchase Access Codes or passwords.
15. 🔊 Read Aloud controls
Use Read Aloud, Pause, Continue and Stop on any page. Decorative emojis and controls are excluded from the spoken content.