105 terms

Problem Solving & Decision Making Glossary

The key vocabulary of Problem Solving & Decision Making, each term defined in plain language. Start learning in the Problem Solving & Decision Making subject, or drill these terms as flashcards.

A/B testing: Comparing two versions with real users to see which performs better.
Analogical transfer: Applying the solution of one problem to another that shares deep structure.
Anchoring: The first number mentioned shaping every estimate after it.
Balancing loop: A loop that resists change, restoring a previous state.
Bias blind spot: Readily seeing bias in others while underestimating it in yourself.
Blameless post-mortem: A review of a failure focused on learning and causes rather than assigning blame.
Blameless review: Assuming reasonable action in order to get accurate information.
Bottleneck: The slowest step, which sets the pace; improving anything else changes nothing.
Brainwriting: Generating silently and independently first, then pooling and building together.
Build-measure-learn: An iterative loop of building something small, measuring the result, and learning before the next step.
Cause-and-effect diagram: A fishbone layout forcing consideration of several categories of cause.
Checklist: A simple list of must-do steps that prevents avoidable errors in complex or high-stakes tasks.
Chunking: Grouping information into meaningful patterns, which lets experts perceive problems more powerfully.
Codebreaking: Recovering hidden meaning from encrypted messages through logic, pattern-finding, and systematic search.
Collective intelligence: The capacity of a group, under the right conditions, to solve problems better than its individual members.
Constraint: A boundary any solution must respect; measured pass/fail.
Constraint relaxation: Temporarily removing a constraint to see what becomes possible.
Contributing cause: A factor that made failure more likely without being sufficient alone.
Convergent thinking: Narrowing possibilities to a choice.
Countermeasure: A change addressing a cause rather than a symptom.
Decision journal: A record of the decision, reasoning, and expectation, written before the outcome.
Decision matrix: Options scored against weighted criteria to expose reasoning.
Decision rights: Explicit agreement about who holds a given decision.
Decision tree: A map of decision points, chance events, and outcomes, solved backwards.
Decomposition: Splitting a problem into parts that can be understood or worked on separately.
Delay: Separation in time between cause and visible effect; the main source of overshoot.
Design thinking: A human-centred problem-solving process: empathise, define, ideate, prototype, and test.
Devil’s advocate: A person assigned to argue against a proposal to surface weaknesses and prevent groupthink.
Disagree and commit: Executing properly on a decision you argued against.
Divergent thinking: Generating possibilities without evaluating them.
Downside: How bad the bad case is, as distinct from how likely it is.
Epidemiological reasoning: Tracing the cause of disease from patterns in data, as John Snow did in the 1854 cholera outbreak.
Evaluation criteria: The dimensions options are scored against, written before scoring.
Expected value: Each outcome multiplied by its probability and summed; blind to ruin.
Feedback loop: A circular relationship where an effect returns to influence its own cause.
Five Whys: Repeatedly asking why to push past the first plausible explanation.
Functional fixedness: Difficulty seeing something as anything other than its usual use.
Groupthink: Desire for cohesion overriding realistic appraisal of alternatives.
Heuristic: A rule of thumb or strategy that guides problem-solving without guaranteeing a solution.
Hindsight bias: An outcome appearing far more predictable after it is known.
Hypothesis-driven analysis: Forming a view about where the answer lies and testing that branch first.
Ill-structured problem: A messy real-world problem with unclear goals, missing information, and no single right answer.
Improvisation under constraints: Solving a problem using only the limited resources at hand, as NASA did during Apollo 13.
Incubation: Setting a problem aside so a solution can emerge after unconscious processing.
Insight: A sudden solution that arrives by restructuring how a problem is seen, rather than step by step.
Intelligent failure: A considered experiment in new territory that did not work; the cost of learning.
Issue tree: A branching breakdown of a problem down to investigable leaves.
Iteration: Repeatedly testing and refining an idea, central to invention and design.
Leverage point: A place in a system where a small change produces large effect; rarely the obvious lever.
Means-end analysis: A strategy of repeatedly reducing the difference between the current state and the goal.
MECE: Mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive — a test for a split with no overlaps and no gaps.
Mental set: The tendency to keep using a familiar approach even when a simpler one exists (the Einstellung effect).
Minimum viable product: The simplest version of a solution that can be tested with real users to learn quickly.
Nash equilibrium: A situation where no player can do better by changing strategy alone.
Near miss: A failure that did not cost anything; the cheapest lesson available.
Nominal group: People generating ideas independently and pooling them, which outperforms live brainstorming.
Objective: What a good solution maximises; measured in more-or-less.
One-way door: A decision that cannot be cheaply reversed, deserving full analysis.
One-way door decision: An irreversible decision that is hard to undo, deserving more care.
Opportunity cost: The value of the best thing you did not do, including attention.
Outside view: Estimating from what happened to comparable efforts rather than from your own plan.
PDCA: Plan, Do, Check, Act — an improvement cycle whose Check step is most often dropped.
Pilot: A small contained test that produces evidence instead of an estimate.
Planning fallacy: Underestimating time and cost, resistant even to direct experience.
Pólya's method: George Pólya’s four-step problem-solving process: understand, plan, execute, and look back (from "How to Solve It", 1945).
Post-mortem: A structured review of what happened and what made it possible.
Pre-mortem: Imagining in advance that a decision has failed, then listing why, to spot risks before they happen.
Premortem: Imagining a decision has already failed and writing why, before committing.
Prepared mind: Pasteur’s idea that chance favours those whose knowledge and attention let them seize an accident.
Prisoner’s dilemma: A classic game showing why two rational parties might not cooperate even when it is in their interest.
Problem: A gap between a current state and a desired state where the route across is not obvious.
Problem framing: The way a problem is stated, which shapes the range of solutions you are able to consider.
Problem space: The mental representation of a problem: the starting state, the goal, and the possible moves between them.
Problem statement: Current state, desired state, objectives, and constraints, written before any solution is proposed.
Production blocking: The loss of ideas in group brainstorming because only one person can speak at a time.
Prototype: A rough, early version of a solution built quickly to test an idea before full commitment.
Psychological safety: Shared belief that speaking up will not be punished; precondition for group process.
Recognition-primed decision: Making a good decision quickly by recognising a familiar pattern rather than comparing many options.
Reframing: Restating a problem in different terms to open different options.
Reinforcing loop: A loop that amplifies change, producing growth or collapse.
Resulting: Judging a decision by its outcome rather than by how it was made.
Reversibility: How hard a decision is to undo; the most neglected evaluation dimension.
Root cause: A cause whose removal stops the problem recurring.
Ruin: An outcome that ends your ability to continue; cannot be averaged away.
Satisficing: Choosing an option that is good enough rather than searching for the theoretically optimal one.
Second-order consequence: The consequence of a consequence, usually delayed and unbudgeted.
Second-order thinking: Considering the later and indirect consequences of a decision, not just its immediate result.
Serendipity: A fortunate discovery made by chance, which pays off only for a prepared, observant mind.
Shared information bias: Discussion gravitating to what everyone already knows.
Small batch: Changing one thing at a time so effects can be attributed.
Solution in disguise: A problem statement that names an answer, foreclosing the option space.
Standard work: An agreed current method, providing the baseline that makes improvement measurable.
Sunk cost: Money or effort already spent, which should not influence the choice ahead.
Symptom: What you observe when something is wrong.
System: A set of components whose interactions produce behaviour none has alone.
Tame problem: A well-defined problem with a clear goal and a knowable solution, in contrast to a wicked problem.
Trade-off: What you give up to get what you chose.
Two-way door: A decision easily walked back, deserving speed rather than analysis.
Two-way door decision: A reversible decision that can be undone, so it can be made quickly.
Unintended consequence: An effect not intended by an intervention, often arising from changed incentives.
Unintended consequences: Outcomes of an action that were not foreseen or intended, sometimes making a problem worse.
Well-defined problem: A problem with a clear start, goal, and rules, like a puzzle.
Wicked problem: A problem that resists clear definition and has no single right solution, often social and interconnected.
Wisdom of crowds: The tendency for aggregated, independent, diverse judgments to be surprisingly accurate.
Working backwards: A heuristic of starting from the desired goal and reasoning back to the starting point.

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