Mental model · Numbers & chance
Thinking in ranges
Thinking in ranges: Describing an uncertain outcome as a set of possibilities with rough weights, rather than one prediction.
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Describing an uncertain outcome as a set of possibilities with rough weights, rather than one prediction.
Try it now
Take something uncertain. Write the good case, the expected case and the bad case, with a rough percentage on each.
What to do with the answer
Ask whether you could survive the bad case. Survivability often decides it regardless of which is most likely.
Where it misleads
Made-up numbers can produce false precision. Their value is making the reasoning checkable, not making it accurate.
The module it belongs to
- Decision Thinking — Make better decisions under uncertainty
The book behind it
- Thinking in bets — Its big ideas, in our own words.