A four-step decision-making process — Data, Analysis, Decision, Action — used by CIA officers to move from raw information to effective action.
Identify what each side wants the situation to look like when it's over, then reason backward to determine what moves make sense now.
Determine whether you're in a zero-sum, positive-sum, or mixed game before making your first strategic move.
Evaluate the credibility of information by assessing the source's access, motivation, and track record.
Analyze risk by mapping necessary conditions (ANDs) and substitutable conditions (ORs) to understand what must go wrong for the bad outcome.
Inside every alliance, someone is the boss. A Boss Game is the fight over who that person is - without destroying the alliance itself.