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Decision Tools

Decision & Thinking Tools

A curated set of frameworks for making decisions, solving problems, understanding systems, and communicating clearly — each explained with steps, a worked example, and pitfalls.

25 tools
Problem solving
Abstraction laddering

Move up for ‘why’ and down for ‘how’ to frame a problem at the right level.

Systems thinking
Balancing feedback loop

The mechanism that resists change and pushes a system toward stability.

Systems thinking
Concept map

Diagram how ideas in a domain relate, with labelled links.

Decision making
Confidence determines speed vs. quality

Let how sure you are decide whether to ship fast or build carefully.

Problem solving
Conflict Resolution Diagram

Find the win-win hidden beneath a conflict’s surface trade-off.

Systems thinking
Connection circles

Map how the elements of a system influence each other to find feedback loops.

Decision making
Cynefin framework

Match your response to the kind of situation you are actually in.

Decision making
Decision matrix

Score options against weighted criteria to choose without gut-bias.

Decision making
Eisenhower Matrix

Sort tasks by importance and urgency so the important stops losing to the merely urgent.

Problem solving
First principles

Strip a problem to its fundamental truths and reason up from there.

Decision making
Hard choice model

Diagnose what kind of choice you face before agonising over it.

Systems thinking
Iceberg Model

Look beneath events to patterns, structures and mental models.

Decision making
Impact–Effort Matrix

Prioritise by plotting the payoff against the work required.

Problem solving
Inversion

Solve the problem backwards — ask how to guarantee failure, then avoid it.

Problem solving
Ishikawa Diagram

Map the many possible causes of a problem as a fishbone.

Problem solving
Issue trees

Break a big problem into a MECE tree of smaller, solvable parts.

Decision making
Ladder of inference

Trace how you climbed from raw facts to a conclusion — and where you jumped.

Communication
Minto Pyramid

Lead with the answer, then support it — structure that respects the reader’s time.

Decision making
OODA loop

Observe, Orient, Decide, Act — and cycle faster than the situation changes.

Problem solving
Productive Thinking Model

A six-step path from messy problem to tested solution.

Systems thinking
Reinforcing feedback loop

The engine behind exponential growth — and runaway collapse.

Decision making
Second-order thinking

Ask ‘and then what?’ — trace the consequences of the consequences.

Communication
Situation-Behavior-Impact

Give feedback that lands — describe the situation, the behaviour, and its impact.

Decision making
Six Thinking Hats

Look at a decision from six deliberate perspectives, one at a time.

Problem solving
Zwicky box

Combine the parameters of a problem to generate options you’d never brainstorm.