Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts
Annie Duke
Making smarter decisions under uncertainty – Thinking in Bets.
In Super Bowl XLIX, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll made one of the most controversial calls in football history: With 26 seconds remaining, and trailing by four at the Patriots’ one-yard line, he called for a pass instead of a hand off to his star running back. The pass was intercepted and the Seahawks lost. Critics called it the dumbest play in history. But was the call really that bad? Or did Carroll actually make a great move that was ruined by bad luck?
Even the best decision doesn’t yield the best outcome every time. There’s always an element of luck that you can’t control, and there is always information that is hidden from view. So the key to long-term success (and avoiding worrying yourself to death) is to think in bets: How sure am I? What are the possible ways things could turn out? What decision has the highest odds of success? Did I land in the unlucky 10% on the strategy that works 90% of the time? Or is my success attributable to dumb luck rather than great decision making?
Review
Annie Duke’s Thinking in Bets reframes decision-making in a way that resonates deeply with project management. Like Duke’s analysis of Pete Carroll’s controversial Super Bowl call, I’ve seen projects fail despite sound planning, and succeed against all odds. Her core premise, that we should evaluate decisions based on process, not just outcomes, has transformed how my team handles risk.
Duke’s poker champion perspective teaches us to embrace uncertainty. We now assess choices by asking: What’s the percentage play? A delayed product launch might seem like a failure, but if the data showed an 80% chance of market readiness, it was still the right call. Her “resulting” trap (judging decisions solely by outcomes) helps us avoid knee-jerk process overhauls when metrics dip.
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