Decisions
15 min

Tripwires and pre-commitment

Decide in advance what observation triggers a review, and commit to the review before the situation can argue you out of it.

Time cost
15 min
Output
A signal, a threshold, an owner, and a pre-decided action.
Steps
5

Use when

  • A decision will drift without a scheduled moment to reconsider it.
  • You are committing resources in stages and each stage could escalate quietly.
  • You know which specific circumstance should change your mind.

Do not use when

  • The tripwire cannot be observed. An unmeasurable trigger is a wish.
  • You will override it. A tripwire you can talk yourself past is worse than none, because it produced the feeling of a safeguard.

Inputs required

  • A decision in progress
  • A measurable signal
  • Someone who will act when it trips

Procedure

  1. 01

    Pick a signal you will actually see

    A date, a number crossing a threshold, a specific event. It must arrive in front of someone without anyone having to go looking for it.

  2. 02

    Set the threshold now

    Before the situation develops. Thresholds set later are set by whoever is most invested in continuing.

  3. 03

    Name the owner

    One person who notices and who raises it. Not a team, and not “we”.

  4. 04

    Say what happens when it trips

    A review is the minimum. Better is a pre-decided action: stop, halve, escalate, revert. The more specific, the harder to rationalise past.

  5. 05

    Make it costly to ignore

    Tell someone else. Put it in a calendar with the decision attached. Pre-commitment works by making the override visible, not by making it impossible.

Characteristic failure mode

A tripwire that trips and is explained away. The threshold is met, someone gives a reason why this instance does not count, and the commitment continues — which is the exact failure it was set to prevent.

Worked example

A project is funded for six months with a budget of £60k.

  1. 01Tripwire: if spend passes £30k before the end of month three, review.
  2. 02Owner: the person who approves invoices, who sees the number anyway.
  3. 03Pre-decided action: pause new commitments until the review concludes, rather than “discuss it”.

Result

The wire trips in week ten. The pause is automatic, so the review happens before another £15k is committed rather than after.

Where to go next

Also cited by
Scenario planning · Failure modes and effects analysis · Bad outcome versus unsurvivable outcome