Decision Quality: A Practical Model for Better Outcomes
High-quality decisions are the foundation of effective strategy and good stewardship. I’ve developed a framework for decision quality built around three core components:
The Three Components
Information Quality Do you have the right facts? High-quality information means you have access to or knowledge of information that is relevant, timely, and correct.
Reasoning Quality Are you making sense of the information logically to formulate your plan of action? This requires clear mental models, structured problem solving, and emotional regulation.
Execution Quality Are you executing with a high degree of fidelity? Even the best plans fail without disciplined follow-through. Execution quality is about ensuring that decisions translate into coordinated, consistent action.
The Framework
This can be visualized conceptually as a simple equation:
\[ \text{Outcome Quality} = f(\text{Information Quality}, \text{Reasoning Quality}, \text{Execution Quality}) \]
Each component is necessary but not sufficient on its own—you need all three. For example:
- Great reasoning applied to poor information yields confident mistakes.
- Great information and great reasoning without execution produces no impact.
- Strong execution of a poor decision leads to failure faster.
This model draws inspiration from both classic strategy frameworks and contemporary research on decision-making under uncertainty.
Full article coming soon.