Decision Hygiene

Kahneman's framework for reducing noise (unwanted variability) in judgment through procedural discipline—the decision-making equivalent of surgical hygiene. Just as surgeons don't rely on individual skill to prevent infection (they follow sterilization protocols), organizations shouldn't rely on individual judgment quality for important decisions—they should follow structured decision protocols. Decision hygiene practices: independent evaluation before group discussion, structured criteria applied systematically, reference class forecasting, and aggregation of multiple independent judgments.

When to use it

When important decisions are made by different people with inconsistent outcomes; when hiring, pricing, diagnosis, or evaluation processes need to be more reliable; when you suspect judgment variability but haven't addressed it structurally; when designing decision processes for organizations.

How it can help

Implement decision hygiene for all important, repeatable judgments. The core practices: (1) Before group discussion, have each person evaluate independently (prevents anchoring and groupthink). (2) Use structured evaluation criteria rather than holistic judgment. (3) Use reference classes ('how did similar situations turn out?') rather than inside-view prediction. (4) Aggregate multiple independent judgments rather than relying on one expert. (5) Delay intuitive judgment until structured analysis is complete. These practices don't require special skill—they're procedures anyone can follow.