Concept
WRAP Process
The WRAP process is Chip and Dan Heath's four-step decision method from Decisive: Widen your options, Reality-test your assumptions, Attain distance before deciding, and Prepare to be wrong.
Each step counters a specific trap. Widening your options breaks narrow framing, the 'this or that' choice that hides better paths. Reality-testing works against confirmation bias. Instead of hunting for reasons you're right, you look for evidence that could prove you wrong and run small, cheap experiments. Attaining distance weakens the pull of short-term emotion. One useful question is how you'll see the choice in ten minutes, ten months and ten years. Preparing to be wrong tempers overconfidence. You imagine the failure in advance and set tripwires that tell you when to revisit. The Heaths stress a second job the process does. Dan Lovallo and Olivier Sibony studied more than a thousand business decisions and found that process quality predicted results far better than depth of analysis. When you run the process fairly with the people a choice affects, they can commit to it even when they disagree.
A real-life example
Maya runs a six-person design studio and wants to drop its biggest, most draining client. She doesn't just announce it. She runs WRAP with the team. They list options beyond keep-or-fire, such as renegotiating scope or raising rates. They call two studios that dropped similar clients and ask how the move will look in a year. Then they agree on a tripwire: if revenue falls 20% for two months, they revisit. Two designers still disagree, but both help carry it out.
How to use it
- 1Before deciding, write down at least three real options and find one cheap way to test the assumption you trust most.
- 2Bring in the people the choice affects early. Share the options, the evidence and the 10/10/10 question, and invite them to push back.
- 3Agree on a tripwire, a date or a number that triggers a review, so being wrong is something you planned for rather than something you fear.