Decision & Option Evaluation

The Decision & Option Evaluation domain. 5 frameworks in this family. Each is graded honestly; see the evidence model for the tiers.

These frameworks all turn a choice into something you can inspect: the conditions a bet rests on, the criteria that separate the options, the reversibility that sets how much care the decision deserves, or the fixed rule that scores a recurring judgment. The shared move is forcing the basis of a decision into the open, where it can be argued, tested, and defended, rather than buried in a hunch.

Reach for this family when

• Several real options compete and the tradeoffs between them are currently implicit.
• A disagreement has hardened into competing opinions with no way to resolve it.
• It is unclear how much process a decision even deserves, so the same heavyweight approval gets applied to everything.
• The same kind of evaluative judgment recurs and your gut calls on it are inconsistent or overconfident.

Which one to use

Start by asking what kind of decision you are facing.

• One choice, contested or assumption-laden. Use What Would Have to Be True. It does not choose among options or generate them; it takes one option or claim and surfaces the conditions that would have to hold for it to be the best choice, then names the load-bearing, uncertain ones to test first.
• Several real options to compare. Use Decision Option Review. It scores options against weighted criteria and shows the tradeoffs. It compares options that already exist; it does not generate them, and it deliberately refuses to let a single weighted total settle a close call.
• Unsure how much rigor the decision warrants. Use One-Way vs Two-Way Door first. It is a triage that runs before any comparison: it classifies the decision by reversibility and matches the deliberation level to the answer. It never says which option to pick, only how much machinery the choice deserves, then points one-way doors to a heavier tool.
• A judgment you make over and over. Use Linear-Model Aggregation. For a repeated predictive judgment (screening, scoring, triage), a simple consistent rule reliably matches or beats holistic intuition because it removes the inconsistency. It is for recurring judgments with real predictive cues, not one-off strategic choices, which belong to Decision Option Review.

Composes with

These frameworks sit at the decide step of the lifecycle, so they assume options already exist: feed them from Divergent Ideation or from Problem Framing once the real question is clear. A one-way door verdict, or a load-bearing condition you cannot yet confirm, hands off naturally to Risk & Resilience to stress-test before committing. After the choice is made, log it in Meta-Thinking & Reflection so the reasoning can be checked against what actually happened.

Framework	Evidence	What it does
Decision Option Review	P	Produces a criteria-weighted option matrix by comparing a set of options against weighted criteria, scoring each, surfacing the explicit tradeoffs, and recommending one while flagging where the scoring is soft.
Fermi Estimation	M/P	Produces a Fermi decomposition worksheet that estimates an unknown numeric quantity by factoring it into a chain of order-of-magnitude sub-estimates, guessing each to within a band, then multiplying back to a point estimate plus a compounded low/high range, with an independence check and a dominant-uncertainty flag.
Linear-Model Aggregation	S	Builds a simple mechanical scoring model - a few weighted predictive cues combined by a fixed formula and applied consistently - for a repeated predictive judgment, because consistent simple rules reliably match or beat holistic expert intuition.
One-Way vs Two-Way Door	P	Produces a reversibility classification that triages a decision before any analysis - labeling it a reversible two-way door or a hard-to-reverse one-way door - and matches the deliberation and sign-off level to that verdict, so reversible calls are made fast and irreversible ones get real rigor.
What Would Have to Be True	P	Converts a strategy, option, or contested claim into the specific conditions that would have to be true for it to be the best choice, rates each condition’s confidence, and identifies which load-bearing assumptions to test first, producing an assumption ledger.

Not sure which of these fits your situation? The Framework Advisor will diagnose the job and recommend a minimal sequence.