Why does post-decision review fail?

The most common reason post-decision review fails: Conflating outcome quality with decision quality. When things go well, you credit your brilliance. When things go badly, you blame your judgment. This makes your review useless — you learn nothing about your actual decision process because you are only responding to results. The deeper failure is skipping reviews entirely for decisions that worked out, because 'good outcomes' feel like they need no examination. Some of your worst decision habits are hiding behind lucky results.

The fix: Pick one significant decision you made in the last 90 days where you now know the outcome. Write down: (1) what you decided and why, (2) what actually happened, (3) whether the outcome was due to your process or to factors you could not have known. Separate the verdict on your process from the verdict on the result. If the process was good but the outcome was bad, identify what new information would have changed your thinking — and add it to your decision framework for next time.

The underlying principle is straightforward: After a decision plays out review whether your framework served you well.