Second Look: External Perspective & Decision Calibration
Glossary
About Second Look
Second Look
An independent perspective applied to a specific decision and used to examine whether a decision is ready before committing. It focuses on reducing avoidable risk rather than improving or optimising outcomes. It does not replace your judgment or make the decision for you. Also referred to as “Second Look: External Perspective & Decision Calibration.”
Second Look Framework
The Second Look Framework is a decision readiness framework that helps founders and decision makers verify whether an important decision is ready before committing. The Second Look Framework evaluates decisions across the stages of Recognition, Decision Diagnostic, Decision Readiness Guide, and Decision Resolution.
Second opinion
A second opinion is an independent perspective on a decision. It is not advice, instruction, or a recommendation, and it does not replace your responsibility for deciding.
Independent perspective
An independent perspective is a view from someone not directly involved in the decision. It helps surface blind spots or aspects that may not be visible from within.
Decision
A choice between options that carries consequences once committed.
Committing
Committing is the point where a decision moves from consideration into action and becomes harder to reverse.
Decision architecture
The overall structure a person or organisation uses to make decisions across situations. It includes how decisions are formed, challenged, owned, and carried through. Looking at decision architecture means examining the system behind decisions, not just a single decision.
The Process
Recognition stage
The stage where a situation in which a decision is made is identified and described.
Decision Diagnostic stage
The stage where a decision is examined to identify what may be missing, unclear, or affecting it.
Decision Readiness Guide stage
The stage where the results of the diagnostic are interpreted and presented in a structured way.
Decision Resolution stage
The stage where the decision is worked through further to reach a point where it can be made with confidence.
Decision Resolution Blueprint
The stage where the decision is worked through further to reach a point where it can be made with confidence.
Decision Resolution Blueprint
A practical pathway to putting what’s needed in place so a decision can be made safely and with confidence. It shows how the decision can be worked through, evaluated, and supported in practice, without telling you what to do.
Understanding Your Situation (Recognition)
Situation
A situation in which a decision is made.
Recognisable situations
Typical situations that happen during decision-making and that you may recognise.
Symptom
The internal name used by the system for a recognisable situation.
Interpreting Your Result (Decision Readiness Guide)
Decision Readiness Guide
A structured interpretation of the Decision Diagnostic results from analysing your decision. It shows: (a) whether everything is in place to decide (analytically- decision readiness) (b) whether the decision is likely to work in practice (real-world conditions- decision viability) It also highlights what may be missing, unclear, or affecting the decision, and what “good shape” would look like.It does not give advice, instruction, or recommendations. It is designed to clarify the state of the decision, not resolve it.
Decision readiness
Decision readiness refers to whether the key elements needed to make a decision are in place — expressed in the guide as the analytical view of the decision.
Decision viability
Decision viability refers to whether the decision is likely to work in practice under real-world conditions.
De-risking
Reducing uncertainty or exposure around a decision so it can be made more confidently and with less risk.
In place
Refers to whether a part of the decision is sufficiently clear, supported, and stable to rely on when deciding.
What’s missing or unclear
Refers to gaps in clarity, information, process, or support around a decision. It does not imply something is wrong, only that parts of the decision are not yet fully understood or characterised.
What good shape looks like
Describes what a well-formed version of part of a decision would look like. It is not instruction or recommendation, but an illustration of structural completeness.
Decision Clarity
Whether options, selection criteria, constraints, key assumptions and major unknowns are clear and explicitly acknowledged.
Decision Ownership
Who can make the decision, and whether that ownership is clear and accepted.
Independent Critique
Whether the decision was independently, meaningfully and competently critiqued before it was made.
Escalation
Whether there is a clear and safe way to resolve disagreement or blockage (who and how).