Decision Making

The Psychology of Scarcity & Abundance 1 The Psychology of Scarcity & Abundance - Part 1: The Scarcity Mindset's Paradoxical Power 2 The Psychology of Scarcity & Abundance - Part 2: The Bandwidth Tax: Scarcity Makes You 'Dumber' 3 The Psychology of Scarcity & Abundance - Part 3: The Scarcity Trap: Borrowing from Tomorrow 4 The Psychology of Scarcity & Abundance - Part 4: The Necessity of Waste: Why Slack Saves You 5 The Psychology of Scarcity & Abundance - Part 5: The Attention Famine in the Content Feast ← Series Home Focus Dividend Scarcity creates powerful attention and efficiency—tighter deadlines boost productivity ...

The Mind of the Maker: Psychology of Engineering Failure 1 The Illusion of Invulnerability: How the Titanic's Designers Dismissed the Iceberg Threat 2 The Certainty Trap: Challenger and the Deadly Cost of Overconfidence 3 The Bureaucracy of Denial: Chernobyl and the System That Couldn't Say Stop 4 The Sunk Cost Bridge: Tacoma Narrows and the Engineering Gambler's Fallacy 5 The Automation Paradox: How Boeing's MCAS System Exploited Pilot Trust ← Series Home The Bridge Wobbled. They Saw It. They Fixed It Wrong. On July 1, 1940, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge opened in Washington state. It was an engineering marvel: a suspension bridge spanning 2,800 feet with the longest center span in the world at that time. The design was revolutionary—the deck was thinner and more flexible than previous bridges, giving it a distinctive, almost delicate appearance. Traffic was modest at first but growing. ...

500 Five decision-making insights from Systems Engineering: Value-Focused Thinking, Process + Creativity, Embracing Failure, Useful Models, and Right Problem Definition. Introduction: Unlocking Wisdom from Unexpected Sources We live in a world of overwhelming complexity. Making a good decision, whether for our business, our career, or our personal lives, feels harder than ever. We’re flooded with data, faced with endless options, and haunted by the fear of choosing incorrectly. In the search for clarity, we often turn to business books or productivity blogs. We rarely look inside a 500-page academic textbook on Systems Engineering. ...

Key Takeaways Two Minds: Your "gut feeling" system makes most decisions before your rational brain even wakes up. Loss Looms Larger: The pain of losing $100 is psychologically 2.5× more intense than the pleasure of gaining $100. Ownership Distorts Value: You'll demand more to sell something you own than you'd pay to buy the identical item. More Choice = Worse Outcomes: Shoppers presented with 24 jam varieties bought less than those offered just 6. Cash Hurts: You spend more with cards because the "pain of paying" is psychologically muted. You think you chose that phone rationally. You compared specs, read reviews, weighed the price against features. A deliberate, logical decision. ...

Key Takeaways Failure is the curriculum: Engineers spend more time studying bridges that collapsed than bridges that stand. The pathology of failure teaches more than the celebration of success. Walls kill innovation: The "over-the-wall" method—where marketing throws requirements to engineering, who throws specs to production—reduces quality by up to 350%. Questions beat answers: Einstein was right: formulating the problem is more important than solving it. Design Thinking starts with "what do they need?" not "what can we build?" Nature already solved it: From Velcro to submarine hulls, the most innovative designs are often borrowed from millions of years of evolutionary R&D. Nothing is ever finished: The paper clip has been "perfected" and patented hundreds of times since 1899. Design is iteration, not invention. Beyond the Blueprint When we think of “design,” we imagine one of two extremes: the polished aesthetics of a luxury car, or the cold precision of an architectural blueprint. Either it’s about making things beautiful, or it’s about following a rigid technical checklist. ...

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