Live · Oct 21
Tesla: merge with SpaceX?
Tesla's independent directors must decide whether to negotiate a merger with Elon Musk's other company
Play this caseLearn to make better business decisions.
Choose from 58 real-company cases. Decide before the outcome, defend your call and get feedback on your reasoning.
Your only supplier is preparing to replace you.
The factory makes 100% of your product and is quietly looking for another distributor.
You disagreed with Nike. Strong: the call compares cost, preserves an option and names a trigger.
Your argument
Renegotiate for a 12-month exclusive while qualifying a second factory. This protects supply without funding a brand launch from zero; switch if exclusivity is refused by 30 June.
F18
R18
A17
M17
E18
Strong example88 / 100
Start with any case
Case 42 · Rolex
The economics of saying no.
Demand exceeds supply. Making more could be how the category loses its value.
Play this caseCase 41 · SoftBank
Lose $70B, then make the next call.
The loss is public. The next allocation decision is due now.
Play this caseCases from Business Case Weekly
A Substack publication with readers at:
CompaniesAMDGoogleValeNorsk HydroGlovoYandexProtivitiH&R BlockMAPFREUniversitiesGeorgia TechBrownBard CollegeWebster UniversityUniversidad del DesarrolloEAFITBucharest ASEPUCPUniversidad ExternadoUSFQUDLAUniversidad MarianaUniversity of LahoreForman Christian CollegeINTIPutra Business SchoolRamkhamhaengUniversity of KabiangaReader domains · not affiliations
Think in FRAME.
FRAME is five checks to run before you commit.
Focus
Clarify the question and what would count as success.
Relevant evidence
Use the evidence in front of you. Say what you are ignoring, and why.
Alternatives
Compare two genuinely different paths. Name what each costs.
Manage uncertainty
Say what you do not know. Cap the downside and name the tripwire.
Execute and learn
Commit, then decide in advance what would make you stop or revise.
Before you send
Find the weakest link, then hand the memo to someone who would argue with it.
Eighteen methods in all.
Improving your judgement by just 1% is worth $10,000 a year.
The model
decided by you a year
1%
more return on that money
$10,000
a year
Put in your own figure: the team, budget and contracts you decide on.
Why 1% is cautious: across 1,048 major company decisions, a decision process in the top quarter went with 6.9 percentage points more return on investment than one in the bottom quarter. It is a correlation from managers’ own accounts, not an experiment. That process is what you practise here. Lovallo and Sibony, McKinsey Quarterly, 2010
How a case works
Each case contains 5–7 questions.
- 01
Read the case.
Get the facts and constraints available when the company faced the fork.
- 02
Take a position.
Choose what you would do.
- 03
Defend the call.
Use evidence, compare an alternative and say what would change your mind.
- 04
See the score.
Get five dimension scores, then compare your reasoning with the outcome.
How the score works
Five FRAME dimensions, twenty points each. Completion earns nothing, and matching the company earns nothing by itself.
Example judgement rating
82/10019 rated casesF · Focus17
R · Relevant evidence16
A · Alternatives14
M · Manage uncertainty18
E · Execute and learn17
Weakest dimension in this example: Alternatives. The memo defends one option without comparing a second. See how inversion fixes that
Every score shows its evidence.
Read the full scoring rubricKeep a decision journal.
Argue a real decision before you know how it ends. Later, the entry shows what you knew then, not what you remember knowing.
Enter a new market?
Before the outcome
Run a six-week pilot first. Open an office if repeat sales can cover its costs. Stop if acquiring customers costs more than the margin they bring.
After six weeks
The pilot brought new customers, but few repeat orders. We postponed the office and kept testing demand with a local partner.
Each entry is reviewed on the same five FRAME dimensions as a case, and only you can see it.
Explore the journalShareable credential.
Once you qualify, your rating, completed cases and the arguments that earned them live behind one public, verifiable link.
Open your case logdecidenda · business judgement
Your Name
82/ 100 · illustrative rating
19 cases closed and defended on the published FRAME rubric.
Updated as you practiseBring FRAME into the room.
See team multiplayer30–90 minutes
Solve one case together.
Pick the whole case or one FRAME step. Everyone sends a written call before seeing anyone else’s; you open the results: how the room split and why.
Create a case room3–8 weeks
Take the course together.
Your people take the Business Judgement Course over 3–8 weeks, between a first and a final decision on real cases. decidenda sends the invitations and reminders; the report compares the two decisions.
See the course planNow argue with the CEOs.
Personal practice is free. For a team, the first case room and the course in 3 weeks are free; then $149 a case room, $599 a course for up to 30 people, or $49 per participant a month for everything, with the first month free and no card.
Sign up free · No card.
Want a structured path through the methods?
The optional Latchkey course teaches 18 thinking methods across ten connected company decisions.