Making Great Decisions: List of Techniques

I recently read the book “Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work” by Chip and Dan Heath. For me, this book is one of the most influential books I’ve come across.

Decisions are incredibly important in life and in our careers. As software engineers, our daily work and meetings don’t matter as much as those few key decisions we make each year. These decisions often have cascading effects, steering the boat for our teams and organizations. As a manager and leader, it’s critical to make solid, well-informed decisions.

I’ve compiled a list of the techniques from the book as a reference—mostly for myself—to review when facing important decisions. I hope this serves as a useful guide for others as well.

List of Decision-Making Techniques in Decisive

1. Widen Your Options

  • Vanishing Options Test: Imagine all current options disappear. What else could you do?
  • Multi-Track: Consider more than one option at a time to avoid tunnel vision.
  • Find Someone Who’s Solved Your Problem: Look outside your immediate context for inspiration or successful examples.
  • Avoid the Either/Or Trap: If you find yourself stuck between two choices, force yourself to generate additional options. Ask, “What if I could do both?” or “What else might I do?”

2. Reality-Test Your Assumptions

  • Ooching: Run small, low-cost experiments to test your assumptions before committing to a decision.
  • Zoom Out, Zoom In: Gain a broader perspective (zoom out) and examine specific details (zoom in) to fully understand the context.
  • Seek Disconfirming Information: Actively look for information that challenges your assumptions or chosen path.
  • Baselines: Establish a default course of action or performance level to compare new options against. Use past performance, external benchmarks, or industry standards to create a meaningful baseline.

3. Attain Distance Before Deciding

  • 10/10/10 Rule: Consider how you will feel about the decision 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years from now.
  • Honor Your Core Priorities: Identify what matters most to you and ensure your decision aligns with those priorities.
  • Avoid Short-Term Emotion: Don’t let temporary feelings drive decisions with long-term consequences.

4. Prepare to Be Wrong

  • Tripwires: Set triggers or boundaries that prompt you to re-evaluate a decision. For example, use specific metrics or timelines to assess progress.
  • Pre-Mortem: Imagine a future where your decision has failed. Identify potential reasons why and take steps to address those risks proactively.
  • Prospective Hindsight: Look back on your decision from the future and predict possible outcomes to uncover blind spots.

Each of these techniques has helped me think more clearly and systematically about decisions, and I hope they can do the same for you. Whether you’re a software engineer, a manager, or a leader in another field, these tools can help improve the quality of your choices and ultimately your outcomes.