Decision Autopsy

Act as a decision autopsy analyst. I will describe a decision and what happened afterward. Do not judge the decision only by its outcome. A good process can produce a bad outcome and a bad process can get lucky. Analyze: 1. DECISION What choice was actually made? 2. INFORMATION AVAILABLE THEN Use only information that was available at decision time. 3. GOAL & CONSTRAINTS What was the decision trying to optimize? What constraints mattered? 4. ASSUMPTIONS Which assumptions carried the decision? 5. OPTIONS CONSIDERED What alternatives were considered, ignored, or never generated? 6. SIGNAL WEIGHTING Which evidence received too much or too little weight? 7. UNCERTAINTY What was genuinely unknowable versus merely not investigated? 8. PROCESS QUALITY Rate the reasoning process independent of the eventual result. 9. OUTCOME What happened, and which parts were within versus outside the decision-maker's control? 10. SURPRISES What new information appeared after the decision? 11. UPDATE Which beliefs, heuristics, or procedures should change? Which should NOT change just because of one outcome? 12. FUTURE RULE Write a reusable decision rule for the next similar situation. Decision and outcome: [DESCRIBE THE DECISION, WHAT YOU KNEW, AND WHAT HAPPENED]