Decision Importance Triage

First determine how important a decision is, then allocate your time accordingly

Brandon Chu
Brandon Chu on product management, writing, and Shopify's culture

Decision Importance Triage

"The most important thing to figure out when you're dealing with any decision is actually figuring out how important that decision is. Since we're faced with hundreds of decisions in any given moment around the product or whatever, and that we're only human and we can only prioritize a few, you got to figure out the importance of them so you can prioritize." - Brandon Chu

What It Is

Decision Importance Triage is a meta-framework for how to approach decisions. Before diving into any decision, first assess how important it is. Then match your effort to that importance level.

Most PMs face hundreds of decisions daily. Treating them all equally leads to decision fatigue, slowdowns, and wasted energy on trivial choices. The insight is that a tiny percentage of decisions (the 1-2%) are dramatically more important than all the others combined. These deserve your deep attention. Everything else should be decided quickly—often by gut or delegation—to preserve time and keep team velocity high.

The key evaluation criteria are reversibility and impact scope. Irreversible decisions affecting many users deserve careful consideration. Reversible decisions affecting few people can be made fast.

How It Works

Step 1: Evaluate Decision Importance

Ask these questions:

  • Reversibility: Can this decision be easily undone? Reversible decisions are lower stakes.
  • User Impact: Does it affect many users in a material way? Broad impact = higher importance.
  • Strategic Implications: Does it set precedent or close off future options?
  • Visibility: Will this be noticed by leadership, customers, or the market?

Step 2: Categorize the Decision

  • Critical (~2%): Irreversible AND affects many users materially. Spend significant time.
  • Important (~8%): Either irreversible OR affects many users. Moderate attention.
  • Routine (~90%): Reversible AND limited impact. Decide quickly.

Step 3: Match Effort to Importance

Category Time Investment Method
Critical Hours to days Deep analysis, gather data, consult stakeholders
Important Minutes to hours Reasonable research, brief consultation
Routine Seconds to minutes Gut feel or delegate

How to Apply It

  1. Before engaging with any decision, classify it - Ask yourself: Is this a top 2% decision or a routine one? Don't let others' urgency fool you into treating routine decisions as critical.

  2. Trust your gut on routine decisions - You're experienced. Your gut is right a decent amount of the time. Making fast decisions on non-critical items keeps team velocity high.

  3. Never be a blocker on routine decisions - If someone is waiting on you for a low-stakes call, decide immediately. Being a bottleneck on trivial decisions kills team morale and speed.

  4. Spend disproportionate time on critical decisions - If you've identified something as truly critical, clear your calendar. Cancel other meetings. This is worth it.

  5. Build a raising the bar muscle over time - As you gain experience and see things that seemed critical turn out fine, calibrate upward what actually qualifies as critical. With battle scars, your threshold rises.

When to Use It

  • At the start of each day - Quickly classify the decisions waiting for you
  • When feeling overwhelmed - Realize most items can be decided fast
  • When others pressure you - Assess whether their urgency matches real importance
  • When coaching junior PMs - Help them understand not all decisions deserve equal weight

Source

  • Guest: Brandon Chu
  • Episode: "Brandon Chu on product management, writing, and Shopify's culture"
  • Key Discussion: (36:36-38:31) - Brandon's most popular post on making good decisions as a PM
  • YouTube: Watch on YouTube

Related Frameworks

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