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MBA — Designing Decision Systems

The bridge from “I can build” to “I can decide what’s worth building and align people around it.”

Decision SystemsIncentivesMetrics StrategyTradeoffsCross-functional Fluency
MBA: designing decision systems

Challenge

  • Move upstream from execution into how decisions get made before code exists
  • Learn how incentives, metrics, power, and uncertainty shape what teams choose to build
  • Build judgment (not breadth) across finance, accounting, marketing, economics, and analytics lenses
  • Translate ambiguity into clear decision logic and alignment

Role

  • Part-time MBA student, optimized for judgment over coverage
  • Treated the MBA as a system to design, not a checklist to complete
  • Prioritized courses that exposed incentives, tradeoffs, and decision logic
  • Synthesized theory with real product, data, and organizational problems

Approach & Decisions

decisions over functions → incentives over intentions → clarity over control

Studied decisions, not functions
Used accounting, finance, economics, marketing, and analytics as different lenses on the same decision problem.
Followed incentives, not intentions
Learned how metrics and ownership structures quietly shape behavior — and why smart teams can ship the wrong thing for the right reasons.
  • Tracked how success metrics flow into prioritization
  • Noted where accountability breaks alignment
Designed decision systems (not just outputs)
Focused on how leaders create leverage by structuring incentives and clarity, not by increasing control.
  • Make tradeoffs explicit
  • Create shared definitions before execution
Shifted operating defaults
Internalized a sequence that improves decision quality under uncertainty.
  • Metrics before roadmaps
  • Instrumentation before optimization
  • Alignment before execution

Outcomes

  • A durable decision framework I now use in product and platform work
  • Stronger cross-functional fluency with marketing, finance, and strategy partners
  • Increased comfort operating where incentives conflict and clarity is missing

Learnings

  • Most product conflict is unresolved business strategy (metrics, customers, risk, and goals)
  • Execution can’t save broken decision logic — velocity amplifies existing incentives
  • Leadership leverage comes from clarity, not control

Artifacts

View all ↗
  • Product Profitability Under Uncertainty
    Built a multi-scenario financial model to decide whether a zero-cost hardware product with subscription revenue should launch, scale, or be killed.
    Open ↗
  • Defending a Core Business in the AI Era - Google Assist
    Proposed a bundled subscription and agentic product strategy to defend Google Search from AI disruption while creating a new recurring revenue stream.
    Open ↗
  • Designing a Sustainable Go-to-Market Model
    Designed pricing, GTM sequencing, and unit economics for an early-stage resilience startup balancing impact, scale, and financial viability.
    Open ↗
  • Five-Year Strategic Planning at the Board Level
    Contributed to a charter school’s 5-year strategic plan spanning enrollment growth, talent pipelines, facilities expansion, and financial sustainability.
    Open ↗