Process versus outcome scoring

Use when

• Reviewing any decision whose outcome depended partly on chance.
• A team is punishing bad luck or rewarding good luck without noticing.
• You want to learn from a decision rather than just feel about it.

Do not use when

• The outcome was fully determined by the decision, with no chance involved. Then the two scores are the same score.

Inputs required

• A decision with a recorded rationale
• Its outcome
• Honesty about what was knowable at the time

Procedure

1. 01

   Score the process first, and alone

   Given only what was knowable then, was the reasoning sound? Do this before looking at the outcome, or the outcome will contaminate it.

2. 02

   Score the outcome

   Did it work? Separately, on its own terms.

3. 03

   Place it in the four cases

   Good process, good outcome: deserved. Good process, bad outcome: bad luck, and the process should be repeated. Bad process, good outcome: luck, and the most dangerous case because it reinforces the error. Bad process, bad outcome: the only one that is genuinely instructive without effort.

4. 04

   Treat the bad-process-good-outcome case seriously

   It feels like success and teaches the wrong lesson. Name it explicitly when it occurs, or the process will be repeated until it fails.

5. 05

   Act only on process

   Change what you do based on the process score. The outcome score is information about the world, not about your judgement.