| Gym attendance: Put workout clothes by bed (reduce activation energy). Reduce unhealthy eating: Don't keep junk food in house (increase activation energy to get it). App signups: Reduce to one click (... |
| Target behavior. Understanding of current friction points. |
| Chemistry concept; applied to behavior design |
| Behavior change. System design improvements. Habit formation. |
| After Action Review | Lessons Learned, Retrospective, Post-Mortem, AAR | 93211171-0627-4fbb-b815-e7e59a23c7c9 | Small Group | Becomes blame session without psychological safety. Can be skipped under time pressure, losing the learning. Actions must be followed up or it's theater. | Structured debrief after an event to capture what happened, why, and what to do differently. Transforms experience into organizational learning. Must be blame-free to work. | Product launch debrief. Planned: Ship May 1. Actual: Shipped May 15. Why: QA found critical bug on April 28; insufficient testing earlier. Action: Add integration test suite to CI; no launch without 2... | Completed event/project. Participants. Blame-free environment. Facilitator. | U.S. Army, 1970s; adapted widely in business | Documented learnings. Action items. Organizational memory. |
| Analogical Reasoning | Cross-Domain Transfer, Pattern Matching, Reasoning by Analogy | 5ff39460-d71c-4f9e-9bf5-166b1d6ef702 | Individual | Analogies can be misleading if structural similarity is superficial. Can import wrong solutions. Requires broad knowledge base to find good analogies. | Import solutions from other domains by finding structural similarities. Different from first principles (which ignores analogies). Powerful for innovation but risky if the analogy breaks down. | Resistance to vaccination. Analogy: Resistance to seatbelt laws in 1980s. Solution that worked: Mandate for children, social norming, infrastructure (click-it-or-ticket enforcement). Mapped back: Scho... | Problem to solve. Broad knowledge across domains. Creative linking ability. | Cognitive science; used throughout history of innovation | Novel solution approaches. Cross-pollinated ideas. Fresh perspective. |
| Antifragility | Benefiting from Disorder, Fragile/Robust/Antifragile | 8c22e46d-1c6a-4f2b-b3f6-03e9ad5a78fc | Individual | Not everything can or should be antifragile. Some stability is needed. Can justify unnecessary risk-taking. Identifying true convexity is hard. | Beyond robust (survives shocks), antifragile systems gain from disorder, volatility, and stress. Design for antifragility: Small experiments, optionality, convex payoffs. Avoid fragility: Hidden risks... | Startup portfolio: Fragile = putting all capital in one bet. Antifragile = many small bets with capped downside, unlimited upside. Hydra: Cut off one head, two grow back. Career: Diversified skills > ... | System or strategy to evaluate. Understanding of volatility exposure. | Nassim Taleb, Antifragile, 2012 | Risk profile assessment. Design improvements. Optionality identification. |
| Chesterton's Fence | Don't Remove What You Don't Understand | e642daa1-73ed-4936-93e6-af7995b1e6cf | Individual | Can justify inertia and status quo bias. Sometimes the original reason was wrong. May be impossible to find original reasoning. | Before removing something, understand why it was put there. If you don't understand its purpose, you're not qualified to remove it. Prevents naive optimization that breaks hidden dependencies. | Legacy code has a strange 3-second delay before processing. Before removing it: Why is it there? Investigation reveals: It prevents race condition with upstream system. Remove the delay → intermittent... | Proposed change. Curiosity about history. Access to institutional knowledge. | G.K. Chesterton, The Thing, 1929 | Informed change decisions. Preserved important constraints. Avoided unintended consequences. |
| Circle of Competence | Stay in Your Lane, Know Your Circle | e642daa1-73ed-4936-93e6-af7995b1e6cf | Individual | Can justify not learning new things. Circle boundaries are fuzzy. May lead to over-reliance on credentialed experts. | Know the boundaries of your genuine expertise. Operate confidently inside your circle, seek help outside it, and never mistake confidence for competence in unfamiliar domains. | Warren Buffett doesn't invest in tech he doesn't understand, even when it's popular. Stays in his circle (consumer brands, financials, insurance). Missed some winners but avoided catastrophic mistakes... | Self-awareness. Honest self-assessment. Intellectual humility. | Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger | Better calibrated confidence. Right decisions about when to seek help. Reduced overreach. |
| Cynefin Framework | Complexity Framework, Sense-Making Framework | 8c22e46d-1c6a-4f2b-b3f6-03e9ad5a78fc | Individual | Domains can be misidentified. Teams may disagree on categorization. Doesn't prescribe specific solutions. | Categorize situations into five domains (Clear, Complicated, Complex, Chaotic, Confused) and match your response approach accordingly. Prevents applying simple solutions to complex problems and vice v... | Software project: Requirements are known and tech is proven (Complicated: apply engineering best practices). Customer behavior in new market (Complex: run experiments, probe). Production outage (Chaot... | Situation to assess. Understanding of domain characteristics. | Dave Snowden, 1999 | Appropriate response strategy. Calibrated expectations. Right methodology selection. |
| Decision Matrix | Criteria Matrix, Pugh Matrix, Weighted Scoring Matrix | aef3aea3-6c12-4fd5-a0cb-bea5c521f85c | Small Group | False precision if criteria or weights are arbitrary. Can be gamed by manipulating weights. Ignores qualitative factors that resist scoring. | Evaluate options against weighted criteria in a structured table. Makes trade-offs explicit, enables comparison, and creates documentation for why a decision was made. | Vendor selection. Criteria: Price (30%), Features (25%), Support (20%), Integration (15%), References (10%). Vendor A: 4,5,3,4,4 = 4.05. Vendor B: 5,3,4,3,5 = 4.00. Close call; dig into feature gap. | List of options. Agreed criteria. Stakeholder input on weights. | Stuart Pugh, 1980s | Ranked options. Documented rationale. Trade-off visualization. |
| Design Thinking | d.school Process, Human-Centered Design | 5ff39460-d71c-4f9e-9bf5-166b1d6ef702 | Cross-functional | Can become theater without rigor. Not suited for well-defined optimization problems. Prototype fetishism can delay decisions. May frustrate stakeholders expecting linear progress. | Human-centered approach to innovation that integrates user needs, technology feasibility, and business viability. Emphasizes empathy, rapid prototyping, and iteration over upfront planning. | Hospital ER wait times. Empathize: Shadow patients, find anxiety from uncertainty worse than actual wait. Define: 'How might we reduce perceived wait time?' Ideate: Real-time status, concierge, entert... | Access to users. Prototyping materials. Tolerance for ambiguity. Time for iteration. | IDEO, Stanford d.school; David Kelley, Tim Brown | User-validated solutions. Tested prototypes. Deep user understanding. |
| Eisenhower Matrix | Priority Matrix, Eisenhower Box, Urgent-Important Matrix | aef3aea3-6c12-4fd5-a0cb-bea5c521f85c | Individual | Requires honest assessment of importance (easy to call everything important). Delegation assumes you have someone to delegate to. Urgency is often externally imposed. | Categorize tasks by urgency and importance into four quadrants: Do (urgent+important), Schedule (important, not urgent), Delegate (urgent, not important), Eliminate (neither). Prevents urgency from cr... | Email from boss (urgent + important) → Do now. Strategic planning (important, not urgent) → Schedule Thursday morning. Expense report request (urgent, not important) → Delegate to admin. Meeting invit... | Task list. Clear goals to judge importance against. | Attributed to Dwight Eisenhower; popularized by Stephen Covey | Prioritized task list. Delegation decisions. Tasks to eliminate. |
| Feedback Loops | Vicious Cycles, Virtuous Cycles, Negative Feedback, Positive Feedback | 8c22e46d-1c6a-4f2b-b3f6-03e9ad5a78fc | Individual | Loops can be hard to identify in complex systems. Multiple interacting loops create unpredictable behavior. Requires systems thinking literacy. | Systems behavior is driven by feedback loops. Positive feedback amplifies (growth or collapse); negative feedback stabilizes. Understanding loops explains why systems behave counterintuitively. | Network effects: More users → more value → more users (reinforcing loop). Bank run: Withdrawals → fear → more withdrawals → bank failure (reinforcing loop, vicious cycle). Thermostat: Temperature rise... | System to analyze. Understanding of stocks and flows. | Norbert Wiener, Jay Forrester, systems dynamics | System behavior explanation. Intervention points. Predicted dynamics. |
| Fermi Estimation | Order of Magnitude Estimation, Back-of-Envelope Calculation | 93211171-0627-4fbb-b815-e7e59a23c7c9 | Individual | Can produce false confidence in precise-seeming numbers. Errors don't always cancel. Garbage in, garbage out if decomposition is wrong. | Estimate unknown quantities by breaking into smaller, estimable components. Even rough estimates are valuable for sanity-checking, prioritization, and revealing what you don't know. Errors in componen... | How many piano tuners in Chicago? Population ~3M → ~1M households → ~10% have pianos → 100K pianos. Each tuned yearly, takes 2 hours, tuner works 2000 hrs/year → 1000 tunings/tuner/year. 100K ÷ 1000 =... | Question to estimate. General knowledge for component estimates. | Enrico Fermi | Order-of-magnitude estimate. Understanding of key uncertainties. Sanity check on claims. |
| First Principles Thinking | Fundamental Analysis, Reasoning from First Principles, Socratic Method | 93211171-0627-4fbb-b815-e7e59a23c7c9 | Individual | Overkill for routine decisions. Slow when speed matters. Can alienate teams if used dismissively ('that's just an assumption'). | Break down a problem to its most fundamental truths, then reason up from there. Strips away assumptions and analogies to reveal what is actually true versus what is merely convention. | SpaceX asked 'Why are rockets so expensive?' Instead of accepting industry pricing, Musk broke down to raw materials (aluminum, carbon fiber, titanium) which cost ~2% of a rocket. The rest was ineffic... | Clear problem statement. Willingness to question everything. Time for deep analysis. | Aristotle; popularized in modern business by Elon Musk | Novel solution unconstrained by convention. Deeper understanding of true constraints. |
| Fishbone Diagram | Herringbone, Cause and Effect Diagram, Ishikawa Diagram | 93211171-0627-4fbb-b815-e7e59a23c7c9 | Small Group | Can become cluttered with complex problems. Categories may not fit all contexts. Requires follow-up verification of hypothesized causes. | Visual tool that maps all potential causes of a problem organized by category (typically: People, Process, Equipment, Materials, Environment, Management). Forces systematic exploration beyond the obvi... | Manufacturing defect analysis. People: training gap, fatigue. Process: spec ambiguity, missing QC step. Equipment: calibration drift. Materials: supplier quality variation. Environment: humidity fluct... | Problem statement. Team with diverse expertise. Whiteboard or diagramming tool. | Kaoru Ishikawa, 1960s | Visual cause map. Prioritized hypotheses. Investigation plan. |
| Forcing Function | Pre-commitment, Ulysses Contract, Commitment Device | aef3aea3-6c12-4fd5-a0cb-bea5c521f85c | Individual | Inflexible if circumstances change. Can create stress. May not address underlying issues. Requires self-awareness about failure modes. | Create constraints that force a desired behavior or decision. Removes willpower from the equation by making the right choice automatic or the wrong choice impossible. Design systems, not willpower. | To ship software weekly, create an automated release that goes out every Thursday regardless of what's ready. Teams now must get features done by Wednesday or wait a week. Shipping cadence improves dr... | Clear desired outcome. Understanding of current blockers. Authority to create constraints. | Behavioral economics; Odysseus tying himself to the mast | Automatic desired behavior. Reduced decision fatigue. Consistent outcomes. |
| Hanlon's Razor | Assume Incompetence Not Malice | e642daa1-73ed-4936-93e6-af7995b1e6cf | Individual | Malice does exist; don't be naive. Can lead to being taken advantage of. Some contexts (security, fraud) require assuming worst case. | Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by ignorance, mistake, or incompetence. Prevents unnecessary conflict and paranoia. Usually leads to more accurate diagnoses. | Colleague didn't invite you to meeting. Malice interpretation: They're undermining you. Hanlon interpretation: They forgot, or didn't realize you'd want to attend. Action: Ask them directly rather tha... | Situation where someone's actions seem harmful. Emotional regulation. | Robert J. Hanlon, 1980 | More accurate interpretation. De-escalated conflict. Better working relationships. |
| Inversion | Negative Brainstorming, Pre-mortem Thinking, Invert, Always Invert | 93211171-0627-4fbb-b815-e7e59a23c7c9 | Individual | Can become negative/pessimistic if overused. Not a complete planning method alone. | Instead of asking how to achieve X, ask how to guarantee failure at X. Then avoid those things. Reveals blind spots and risks that forward thinking misses. | Goal: Healthy marriage. Inverted: How to guarantee divorce? Neglect, contempt, infidelity, poor communication, financial secrets. Solution: Actively do the opposite. | Goal statement. Willingness to think negatively. | Carl Jacobi (mathematician); popularized by Charlie Munger | Risk identification. Anti-patterns to avoid. Defensive strategies. |
| Jobs to Be Done | Customer Jobs, Outcome-Driven Innovation, JTBD | 0ecf5635-4d38-4d89-9f99-794f8ed131c8 | Small Group | Jobs can be articulated at many levels; finding the right altitude is art. Can be used to justify any product with post-hoc rationalization. Requires deep customer insight. | Customers don't buy products; they hire them to do a job. Understand the underlying job (functional, emotional, social) to build solutions that truly satisfy. Reframes competition around the job, not ... | Milkshake sales: Morning buyers want something to make boring commute interesting (job = entertainment + sustenance). Competitors: banana, bagel, boredom. Solution: Thicker shake with chunks. Afternoo... | Customer interviews. Observation of behavior. Understanding of context. | Clayton Christensen, 2003 | Reframed problem definition. Innovation opportunities. Clearer value proposition. |
| Leverage Points | Donella Meadows Framework, System Intervention Points | 8c22e46d-1c6a-4f2b-b3f6-03e9ad5a78fc | Individual | High-leverage points are often hardest to change. Map of system may be wrong. Unintended consequences at high-leverage points are also magnified. | Not all interventions are equal. Identifies 12 places to intervene in a system, ranked by leverage. Pushing at high-leverage points (goals, paradigms) creates more change than low-leverage points (par... | Reducing emissions: Low leverage = subsidizing EVs (parameters). Higher leverage = carbon pricing (rules). Highest leverage = changing the paradigm from 'growth at all costs' to 'sustainability as pro... | System understanding. Map of feedback loops. Ability to identify paradigms. | Donella Meadows, 1999 | Prioritized intervention points. Higher-impact strategies. Paradigm-level insights. |
| Lindy Effect | Time-Tested, Lindy's Law | e642daa1-73ed-4936-93e6-af7995b1e6cf | Individual | Doesn't apply to perishable things. Past survival doesn't guarantee future relevance. Can justify stagnation. Some contexts reward novelty. | For non-perishable things (ideas, technologies, books), life expectancy increases with age. Something that has survived 100 years is likely to survive another 100. Use age as a proxy for robustness wh... | Which programming language to learn? C (50 years old) likely to be relevant another 50 years. Hot new framework (2 years old) likely relevant another 2 years. For career investment, prefer Lindy-prove... | Age of the thing. Classification as perishable/non-perishable. | Benoit Mandelbrot; popularized by Nassim Taleb | Longevity estimate. Decision filter. Risk calibration. |
| Map is Not the Territory | Abstract vs Reality, Model Limitations | e642daa1-73ed-4936-93e6-af7995b1e6cf | Individual | Can lead to excessive skepticism of all models. Some maps are very good. Doesn't tell you which model to use. | All models are simplifications of reality. The map (model, plan, strategy) is useful but is not the territory (reality). Don't mistake your model for truth; stay alert for where reality diverges from ... | Financial model projects 20% growth. Remember: model assumes no recession, stable competitive environment, continued customer behavior. When growth slows, don't force reality to match the model; updat... | Awareness of using a model. Curiosity about its limitations. | Alfred Korzybski, 1931 | Intellectual humility. Earlier detection of model failures. Better models over time. |
| MECE | Logic Tree, Issue Tree, Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive | 93211171-0627-4fbb-b815-e7e59a23c7c9 | Individual | Can feel forced when reality doesn't decompose cleanly. Over-application creates artificial boundaries. Not helpful for highly interdependent systems. | Structure a problem into categories that don't overlap (mutually exclusive) and together cover all possibilities (collectively exhaustive). Ensures complete coverage without double-counting. | Revenue decline: Split into Volume (units sold) vs. Price (revenue per unit). Volume: New customers vs. Existing customers. Each branch is exclusive and together they explain all revenue. | Problem statement. Willingness to iterate on structure. | McKinsey & Company, Barbara Minto | Structured breakdown. Complete problem map. Clear work streams. |
| Minimum Viable Product | Build-Measure-Learn, Lean Startup, MVP | 93211171-0627-4fbb-b815-e7e59a23c7c9 | Small Group | MVP can become excuse for low quality. Some products require critical mass to test. B2B buyers may not tolerate MVPs. Can lead to local optimization via incremental learning. | Build the smallest thing that tests your riskiest assumption. Learn from real customer behavior, not speculation. Fail fast and cheap to succeed faster and cheaper. | Dropbox tested demand before building the product. MVP was a 3-minute demo video showing how it would work. Waitlist signups jumped from 5,000 to 75,000 overnight. Hypothesis validated: People want ea... | Hypothesis to test. Ability to build quickly. Access to customers. Metrics. | Eric Ries, Steve Blank, Lean Startup movement | Validated or invalidated hypothesis. Customer learning. Reduced waste. |
| Morphological Matrix | Design Space Exploration, Zwicky Box, Morphological Analysis | 5ff39460-d71c-4f9e-9bf5-166b1d6ef702 | Individual | Combinatorial explosion with many parameters. Can produce infeasible combinations. Doesn't help prioritize among valid options. | Systematically explore a solution space by identifying independent parameters and their possible values, then combining them in a matrix. Forces exhaustive consideration of combinations that intuition... | Product packaging: Material (plastic, glass, aluminum, paper) × Size (small, medium, large) × Closure (cap, seal, pump) × Label (printed, sleeve, embossed). 4×3×3×3 = 108 combinations to evaluate. | Clear problem decomposition. Knowledge of possible values per dimension. | Fritz Zwicky, 1940s | Exhaustive option set. Novel combinations. Structured design space. |
Name | Aliases | Category | Complexity | Contraindications | Description | Example | Inputs | Origin | Outputs | Problem Types | Related Frameworks | Steps | Time to Apply |
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