Outside View Decision

Outside View Decision

Overview

Use this skill to slow down high-stakes decisions and replace unsupported confidence with evidence, base rates, and explicit assumptions. Do not copy book text; use the original workflow here and cite references/source-notes.md when needed.

Workflow

1. Define the decision, irreversible consequences, timeline, and owner.
2. Separate inside view from outside view: capture the user's narrative, then identify a comparable reference class.
3. Gather base rates from past comparable cases, benchmarks, or historical examples.
4. Adjust from the base rate only for concrete differences, not optimism.
5. Run bias checks: overconfidence, anchoring, availability, planning fallacy, loss aversion, sunk cost, and framing.
6. Run a premortem: assume failure happened, list likely causes, and add mitigations.
7. Produce a decision journal: options, assumptions, base rates, evidence, uncertainties, decision, and review date.

Output

Return:

• recommendation
• reference class and base rates
• key assumptions
• bias risks
• premortem risks and mitigations
• decision journal entry
• review trigger/date

Resources

• references/process-checklist.md
• references/source-notes.md