One way vs two way doors

First things first:

I’m launching a new project called Solved, and you have until this Friday to join as a founding member.

Solved is like an MBA for project managers, minus the suits and dry theory.

As a Solved member, you’ll get early access to all my practical playbooks & lessons learned, tools & templates, and connect with peers to exchange ideas and share experiences. It’s the career accelerator I wish I had a decade ago.

But as you know, building a project while ignoring your key stakeholders is asking for trouble.

That’s why I’m looking for 20 founding members to join early. You’ll get to work closely with me in developing the course, request & prioritize content, and lock in a 50% discount forever.

Reply “Solved” to learn more.

How many decisions have you made today?

Think about it for a second. I’ll wait…

According to the Harvard Business Review, we make about 2,000 decisions every waking hour. Crazy, right?

Some of them are big, while you make others on autopilot. From whether to invest another million dollars into the project to what you’ll wear to work today (although not everyone agrees that’s a small decision).

Within your project, the people on your team make decisions all day too. Most of them you’ll never know about.

And that’s great. That’s autonomy. You’d go crazy otherwise.

But some decisions will end up on your plate as the project manager. And how you deal with those has a big impact on your team and your project.

You see…

Decision-making is a balancing act between speed and accuracy.

To deal with this, I often think about Jeff Bezos’ idea about one-way versus two-way doors, which he introduced in 1997. (link to the original Amazon shareholder letter)

Let me explain…

A type 1 decision means that there’s no way back. It’s a door that once closed, cannot be opened again. These decisions are big, risky, uncertain, or all of the above.

On the other hand, a type 2 decision is reversible. If you get it wrong, you can fix it easily.

Your goal?

Have as few type 1 decisions as possible.

While that’s easier said than done, it’s a great thought exercise.

Next time you find yourself facing an irreversible decision, ask yourself: “What would have to change for this decision to become reversible?”

Can you do a small test before you commit? Break up the big decision into small parts? Or mitigate the downside risk?

Instead of spending weeks weighing the pros and cons, spend some of that time replacing the big and hairy decision with a dozen minor ones and moving on.

Because a reversible decision can be taken fast. By a single person, or maybe a few people.

A fast decision means you’ll have data sooner. This means you’ll learn sooner, improve more, and make better future decisions.

Spot the flywheel?

Execution speed is an overlooked risk mitigation strategy.

But, I get it.

Sometimes there’s no way around a big type 1 decision.

If that’s the case, you can reduce the risk and uncertainty with two main approaches:

1. Involve more perspectives

2. Do more analysis

Note how I didn’t say “involve more people”. That’s often a consequence, but it’s not the goal. The goal is to diversify the thinking.

Get outside perspectives. Gather more data. Look at lessons learned. Talk to someone who’s done it before.

And if that means more people, sure. But don’t invite every director and their dog into the decision, thinking that if you just ask enough people you’re safe.

I also didn’t say “Use more time to decide”. More analysis can be done by different people at the same time, for example. (Read more about this in my newsletter on McKinsey’s framework for problem-solving.)

But here’s the thing…

As projects increase in size and complexity, so do the consequences of getting a type 1 decision wrong.

Which means we default to accuracy. To risk aversion.

But there’s a big risk in that too.

It slows you down. And as slow and accurate decision-making becomes the norm, it gets applied to minor stuff too.

The best line about this form the whole shareholder letter is this one:

We can replace organization with project here.

I’ve seen this so often: teams of 8 deliberating for weeks about what font size the project report should be. Please, don’t fall for it.

So, next time you face a deliberate decision, ask yourself:

• Is this a type 1 or type 2 decision?

• If it’s type 1: can you make it reversible?

• If it’s type 2: how can you take this fast and move on?

And speaking of irreversible decisions…

You have 3 days to decide if you want to join Solved as a founding member and lock in the best deal you’ll ever find.

Reply “solved” to learn more.

Talk soon,
Jasper

PS: if you enjoyed that, I think you’ll enjoy these two books too:

1. If you want to learn more about decision-making from 2 of my favorite authors in a fun and practical way, I highly recommend Decisive by Chip & Dan Heath.

2. If you’d like to dig deep into how our mind works around decision-making, you can’t beat Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.