Two Types of Decisions

Not all decisions are equal. Some are easy to reverse. Some lock you in. Treating every decision the same is one of the most expensive mistakes you can make.

Type A: Hard to Reverse (One-Way Doors)

These are decisions with high reversal cost. Once you walk through, it's expensive, slow, or impossible to go back.

Characteristics:

• Changing course requires significant time, money, or resources
• Creates dependencies that are hard to untangle
• Affects many people or systems
• Commits you for a long period

Examples:

• Choosing your core technology stack
• Hiring a leadership team member
• Signing a multi-year contract
• Selecting your company's legal structure
• Picking your target market or customer segment
• Architectural decisions that touch everything
• Making acquisition offers

How to handle them:

• Gather data and perspectives
• Think through second-order effects
• Involve the right people
• Take the time to get it right
• Document your reasoning

Type B: Easy to Reverse (Two-Way Doors)

These are decisions you can undo, adjust, or iterate on without major cost. You can walk back through the door.

Characteristics:

• Low cost to change direction
• Affects few people or systems
• Can be tested or experimented with
• Feedback comes quickly

Examples:

• Trying a new meeting format
• Tweaking a feature's UI
• Testing a marketing message
• Changing a process or workflow
• Adjusting team responsibilities
• Picking a tool for a small project
• Prioritizing this sprint over that one

How to handle them:

• Decide quickly with available information
• Ship and learn
• Adjust based on feedback
• Don't agonize over optimization

The Critical Insight: Most Decisions Are Type B

This is what people get wrong. They treat reversible decisions like irreversible ones.

The result: paralysis, slowness, endless meetings, decision fatigue. You spend three weeks debating something you could have tested in three days.

Speed matters for Type B decisions. Making them slowly doesn't make them better—it just makes you slower. The cost of delay exceeds the cost of being wrong.

The Real Question: Which Type Is This?

Before making any decision, ask:

"What's the cost to reverse or adjust this?"

• High reversal cost = Type A = Slow down, think deeply, involve others
• Low reversal cost = Type B = Decide fast, test, iterate

If you're not sure, it's probably Type B. True Type A decisions are rarer than you think.

The Hidden Cost: Treating Type B Like Type A

When you treat every decision like it's irreversible:

• Velocity drops to zero
• People become risk-averse
• Innovation stops
• Decision fatigue increases
• Good people leave because nothing moves

The slowdown cost compounds. While you're debating the "perfect" reversible decision, competitors ship, learn, and iterate three times.

Examples in Practice

Type A (slow down):

• Migrating from microservices to monolith (or vice versa)
• Choosing your database paradigm for core data
• Committing to a multi-year cloud vendor contract
• Deciding to pivot the entire business model
• Setting your pricing model structure

Type B (decide fast):

• Which features to build this month
• How to organize team meetings
• What to call this internal tool
• Whether to A/B test X or Y first
• Which Slack channels to create
• Trying a new onboarding flow

The grey area (use judgment):

• Hiring a senior engineer (mostly Type A, but fixable)
• Choosing a third-party API (depends on how deep the integration)
• Reorganizing a team (reversible but painful)

Ask: "If this doesn't work, what does it cost to change?" That tells you which type it is.

Making Type A Decisions Better

For the few truly irreversible decisions:

1. Gather diverse perspectives — but timebox it
2. Write down your reasoning — future you needs context
3. Consider second-order effects — what breaks downstream?
4. Look for ways to reduce irreversibility — can you test a smaller version?
5. Set a decision deadline — even Type A decisions can't wait forever

Making Type B Decisions Better

For the many reversible decisions:

1. Decide with 70% certainty — waiting for 100% is waste
2. Ship and measure — real feedback beats theoretical debate
3. Set a review trigger — "we'll check this in 2 weeks"
4. Bias toward action — the cost of being wrong is low
5. Embrace iteration — version 1 doesn't have to be perfect

The Questions to Always Ask

"What's the cost to reverse this decision?" "What type of decision is this really?" "Am I treating a Type B decision like Type A?"

If the reversal cost is low, decide fast and learn. If it's high, slow down and think deeply. But don't confuse the two.

Your goal isn't perfect decisions. It's appropriate velocity for each type of decision—and not letting Type B decisions grind everything to a halt.

---

Once you see decision types, you stop agonizing over everything. You know when to think, and when to move.

---

Christian Blank
San Francisco · Updated May 2026
christian@blank.dev | www.blank.dev
Co-written and formatted with AI