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Evidence before options
More ideas rarely rescue a decision that has been built on assumptions nobody has tested.
Options feel productive
Generating options is easy to enjoy. It creates energy and makes a difficult situation feel open again. The risk is that every option inherits the same weak assumptions.
If you do not know who the customer is, what they value or what constraint is real, adding a fourth route may only create a fourth way to be wrong.
Separate the known from the convenient
Start by writing down what the decision currently treats as true. Then mark each statement as evidence, assumption or open question.
Be strict. A strong opinion is not evidence. A conversation with one friendly person is useful, but it is not automatically a market. A dashboard number is not useful until you know what behaviour sits underneath it.
- What have we directly observed?
- What came from a credible source?
- What are we inferring?
- What would change the decision if it proved false?
Then compare fewer, better routes
Good decision work does not explore every imaginable future. It compares the strongest realistic options against the evidence that matters.
The aim is not certainty. It is to make a call with your eyes open and to design the next move so reality can answer what remains unclear.