The Uncertainty Decision System
Make the best available decision before circumstances make it for you.
The Uncertainty Decision System is Quinn Koller’s practical method for making consequential decisions when the information is incomplete, the consequences matter, and waiting carries its own risk. It helps leaders see what is changing, decide what matters, and move with enough discipline to learn and adjust after the decision.
The objective is not certainty. It is informed, accountable action.
Assess your institution’s readiness or talk with Quinn about a decision.
The problem it solves
Important institutional decisions rarely arrive with clean data and unanimous agreement. Enrollment moves while forecasts are being prepared. Technology changes before policy catches up. Program economics become urgent after years of accumulated choices. Boards, cabinets, and faculty bodies may all hold part of the picture without sharing the same assumptions.
In that environment, gathering more information can look responsible even when it has stopped improving the decision. A request for one more report becomes another planning cycle. Options quietly disappear. The decision is eventually made by declining enrollment, exhausted reserves, lost talent, or an external deadline.
The Uncertainty Decision System distinguishes useful analysis from avoidable delay. It gives leaders a way to move before certainty arrives without turning speed into recklessness.
The method: SEE. DECIDE. MOVE.
1. SEE what is changing
Start with the decision environment, not the preferred answer.
- Identify signals that could materially change the choice.
- State the assumptions on which the current plan depends.
- Separate observed facts from interpretations and forecasts.
- Look for pressures that annual planning cycles are likely to miss.
- Define what would have to be true for each option to succeed.
The purpose of SEE is not to predict a single future. It is to expose where the current story may already be wrong.
2. DECIDE what matters
Not every uncertainty deserves equal attention. Determine which variables could change the decision and which are merely interesting.
- Define the decision, the owner, and the deadline.
- Classify the decision by reversibility and consequence.
- Establish criteria before debating alternatives.
- Compare options across more than one plausible future.
- Identify the minimum evidence required to commit.
A reversible decision should not be treated like an irreversible one. A routine operating choice should not be sent through the same process as a decision that changes institutional identity, closes a program, or commits years of capital.
3. MOVE with confidence
A decision is incomplete until responsibility, communication, and review are defined.
- Name who owns execution.
- Convert the choice into immediate priorities and actions.
- Explain what was decided, why, and what remains uncertain.
- Establish indicators that could trigger adjustment.
- Schedule the first review before implementation begins.
Confidence here does not mean believing the decision cannot be wrong. It means knowing why the choice was made, what evidence would challenge it, and how the institution will respond.
The 70% Rule
The 70% Rule is a readiness threshold, not a mathematical formula. When leaders possess roughly 70% of the information they reasonably need, understand the material risks, and can contain or correct the downside, additional delay may cost more than additional data is worth.
The rule does not mean “act whenever you feel 70% confident.” It requires leaders to ask:
- Is the decision clearly defined?
- Do we know which missing information could actually reverse the choice?
- Is the decision reversible, partly reversible, or effectively permanent?
- Can we observe results early enough to correct course?
- Is the cost of waiting now greater than the likely value of more analysis?
The threshold should rise when human safety, legal obligations, research integrity, fiduciary duties, or irreversible institutional harm are involved.
Reversibility determines the decision process
The more reversible a choice is, the less justification there is for waiting for perfect information.
Reversible decisions can be tested at limited scale, monitored, and changed. Examples include a pilot workflow, an initial audience segment, or a time-bound service experiment.
Partly reversible decisions create meaningful transition costs but can still be modified. Examples include reorganizing a unit, redesigning a curriculum, or adopting an enterprise process.
Hard-to-reverse decisions alter long-term commitments, institutional identity, or obligations to people. Program closure, major capital investment, binding partnerships, and policy decisions affecting student rights require more evidence, wider consultation, and explicit safeguards.
Treating every decision as irreversible produces paralysis. Treating irreversible decisions as experiments produces avoidable harm. The discipline is matching the process to the decision.
Decision audits and review loops
A decision audit records the quality of the reasoning at the moment of choice. It should capture:
- The decision and accountable owner
- The alternatives considered
- The evidence used
- Assumptions and material unknowns
- Expected outcomes
- Leading indicators
- Known risks and safeguards
- The next review date
This prevents hindsight from rewriting what leaders knew at the time. It also makes institutional learning possible: teams can distinguish a poor decision process from a reasonable decision followed by an unforeseeable result.
A review loop then asks three questions: What has changed? Which assumptions still hold? Do we continue, adapt, or stop? Reviews should be triggered by time, evidence, or a predefined threshold—not by discomfort alone.
From direct experience
Quinn developed this approach across environments where complete information was rarely available. His early work included military service and international geographic affairs. In higher education, he later built viability models across Utah Valley University’s 446-program academic portfolio. The resulting framework informed the redirection of $8.9 million from underperforming programs into growth areas and became part of the institution’s recurring planning process.
The lesson across those settings was consistent: uncertainty does not remove the obligation to decide. It changes the discipline required before and after the choice.
Read more about Quinn’s experience and explore consulting, workshops, and coaching.
When this system should not be used
The Uncertainty Decision System is not a substitute for:
- Required legal, regulatory, accreditation, or due-process review
- Emergency procedures where established incident command applies
- Validated technical, clinical, safety, or research protocols
- Meaningful consultation with people materially affected by the choice
- Additional evidence when a missing fact could predictably reverse an irreversible decision
It should not be used to manufacture urgency, bypass governance, rationalize a predetermined answer, or describe intuition as evidence. Acting with incomplete information still requires candor about what is unknown.
Common questions
What is decision-making under uncertainty?
Decision-making under uncertainty is the discipline of choosing a course of action when important outcomes, conditions, or probabilities cannot be known in advance. A sound process identifies material unknowns, matches rigor to reversibility, commits at an appropriate threshold, and establishes a way to learn and adjust.
Does the 70% Rule mean leaders should ignore missing data?
No. It means leaders should distinguish information that could change the decision from information that merely makes the decision feel safer. The percentage is a practical threshold, not permission to skip required analysis.
How is this different from scenario planning?
Scenario planning explores multiple plausible futures. The Uncertainty Decision System uses that insight within a broader decision process: define the choice, assess reversibility, select criteria, commit, communicate, and review.
What is a decision audit?
A decision audit is a contemporaneous record of the evidence, assumptions, alternatives, risks, expected outcomes, and review triggers behind a choice. It allows leaders to evaluate the quality of the process without letting later outcomes distort the original context.
Can the method work with shared governance?
Yes. The method does not remove consultation. It clarifies who provides input, who recommends, who decides, what evidence matters, and when the decision must be revisited.
What should leaders do when the team cannot agree?
Return to decision rights and criteria. Confirm who owns the choice, identify which disagreement concerns facts versus values, and determine whether any unresolved evidence could materially reverse the decision.
Put the system to work
Use the Higher Education Future Readiness Scorecard to identify where your institution is prepared, exposed, or relying on assumptions that deserve another look.
For a consequential decision already in front of your team, book a strategy session with Quinn.