Cartesian Logic for making difficult decisions

Use the questioning paths below to consider multiple sides of a decision when struggling to make one. This will help contextualize max rewards vs. max downside.

The goal is to make decisions that have unbounded rewards, but limited downside. An example would be:

• “If I built this solution in 2 days it could save the company 2 person years of development; but if I’m wrong, I’ve only cost myself 2 days” → Good risk/reward profile
• “If I hack a solution together I can get it out in 2 weeks, but it may then require 6 months of refactoring 12 months from now” → Poor risk/reward profile

Often such questions are not so clear cut. Stepping back often provides some perspective, but I’ve also found cartesian logic to be useful when thinking through a tough decision:

The questions

These questions can orientated towards your client. If you are in DevOps, developers may be your client. If you are in platform, then a product team might be your client, if you are a product strategist the paying customer may be your client.

What WOULD happen if you DID make that change?

Does it help your client?

Does it help them in the short run? How about the long run?

What WOULD happen if you DIDN’T make that change?

What is the pain your client is feeling?

What are the other opportunities to help your client? What is the biggest value to them?

What WOULDN’T happen if you DID make that change?

Are there pains you are removing by making the change?

What WOULDN’T happen if you DIDN’T make that change?

Hardest to conceptualize, but are there any benefits to doing nothing?

When you have data

Where you have hard data backing a decision, you can try a complimentary, more data driven set of questions:

This is particularly relevant when trying to flesh out you own innovator’s dilemma challenge. It may help reveal when you have an asymmetric upside.

Picking numbers can be very subjective in itself, so where possible try to leverage the power of the crowd. This book is a useful primer for how to use crowd insight where you do not feel comfortable depending on your own internal viewpoints:

https://www.amazon.com/Noise-Human-Judgment-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0316451401