Quality Vs. Speed: Decision Making Framing

Data is endless. Perfect information is not feasible. The pursuit will only lead to analysis paralysis. At the same time, you don't want to mindlessly act without facts.

Taking too long to act and acting without sufficient preparation, both lead to wasted time and resources. To decide whether to optimize for decision quality or speed, it's helpful to frame the situation.

Decisions can be one-way doors or two-way doors.

One-way doors are rare. These are entrance-only decisions where reversing course is very difficult. Given the commitment, you'll want to gather enough information to maximize your decision quality (pre-action learning).

Two-way doors are more common. They allow for easy entrance and exit. These decisions can be quickly undone if they turn out wrong. Optimize for speed (and post-action learning). It's much better to go through the door and see what's there than waiting at the doorstep. Don't like what's on the other side? Take your learnings and simply moonwalk out of there. Here you'll learn more by doing.

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Herman Ye

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