Problem Solving & Decision Making

Course Overview

Format: Four modules, self paced, completed independently. A Pre-Course Reflection to start, module lessons in between, Final Reflections plus an end-of-course quiz to close it out.

Who it’s for: Emerging and practising leaders who make decisions without complete information, which is to say, nearly everyone in a leadership role. No prior training assumed.

The four modules:

1. A Structured Approach to Ambiguous Decisions: why outcome and decision quality aren’t the same thing, the conditions that most degrade judgment under pressure, and a practical four-step structure, define the problem, generate real options, weigh them against explicit criteria, decide and commit, for decisions that don’t have an obvious answer.

2. Overconfidence and Analysis Paralysis, The Two Ways Judgment Fails: why confidence isn’t a reliable signal of accuracy, the specific patterns behind overconfidence (confirmation bias, sunk cost), why continued analysis often serves an emotional function rather than an informational one, and the practical checks and deadlines that guard against each failure mode.

3. Matching Process to Stakes and Time Pressure: calibrating how much process a decision actually deserves based on its real stakes and reversibility, rather than its felt urgency, and giving yourself permission to decide quickly on the decisions that don’t warrant heavy deliberation.

4. Building an Ongoing Decision-Making Practice: a simple post-decision review structure, tracking your own recurring patterns over time, and applying a targeted personal check for your own most common failure mode.