It is undeniable that decision-making is a central aspect of our lives. Not only can large choices - such as where to live or work, or whether to have children - have a high impact on the course of our journeys, but the seemingly smaller everyday decisions we make everyday can too.

With so many of us feeling the strain of decision fatigue, and with hidden traps and cognitive biases in danger of driving us towards reductive estimations or poor decisions, how can we revive our ability to make well-judged choices that serve us in work and life?

Following our hugely successful in-room one-day MBA, where Dr Valentina Ferretti, fellow in decision science at the London School of Economics and Political Science, engaged the audience with her fascinating and interactive session on decision-making, we have invited her to deliver an intensive one-day masterclass.

Practical and engaging, this masterclass will focus on the key blind spots when choosing options - and will take on the format of a behavioural decision-making gym, with workout sessions designed to raise awareness about dangerous traps, discover solutions to avoid them, and experience the impact of the discovered solutions through hands-on sessions. You will emerge prepared to recognise in yourself and in others key decision biases, as well as equipped with effective solutions to debias them.

Course Content

Framing workout: a problem or an opportunity?
Decision objectives workout: “if you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there”
Stretching workout: finding the sweet spot of confidence

This course is for ...

Anyone intrigued by the fascinating field of behavioural science and wishing to know more about what drives our own choices as well as the ones of the people around us
Anyone interested in learning how to recognise and address blind spots in their decision-making approach, such as our own cognitive biases, and how to mitigate them

Tutor Profile

Dr Valentina Ferretti is a fellow in decision sciences in the department of management at the London School of Economics and Political Science, associate professor in project appraisal and decision making at the Politecnico of Milan, and a visiting lecturer at the University of Oxford and École Centrale Paris. Valentina is a decision process engineer, with a focus on decision behaviour, analysis, support and resilience. She is interested in how decision process boosts can improve subjects’ active competences for better and more empowered strategic decisions across different domains, ranging from policy making, to environmental decision making, and management. Valentina is the winner of the 2017 INFORMS Decision Analysis Practice Award and of the LSE Teaching Excellence Award for her inspirational teaching on how to make better decisions.

Course Details

Date: Monday 18 October 2021
Time: 10am - 4pm (BST)

You will be sent a link to the webinar 2hrs before the start time of 10:00 am (BST).

This masterclass is available globally. If you are joining us from outside the United Kingdom, please use this time zone converter to check your local live streaming time.

10:00am BST | 11:00am CEST | 2.00am PDT | 5.00am EDT

You will be sent a link to the webinar two hrs before the start time. Please email masterclasses@theguardian.com if you have not received the access link within one hour of the scheduled start time.

All Guardian Masterclasses are fully accessible but please contact us at masterclasses@theguardian.com if you have any queries or concerns.

Full course and returns information on the Masterclasses website

How to make better and more resilient decisions: A one-day bootcamp