DQR Institute is building the independent standard and rating for decision quality — a published methodology and an independent assessment of the reasoning behind consequential decisions, before the outcome is known. It sets the measure; it does not advise on or build what it rates.
Across consequential enterprise decisions, the same failure kept appearing: the analysis was right and the decision still failed. Outcomes turned not on the accuracy of the model but on the quality of the judgment that configured it — whether the real decision had been framed, whether the load-bearing assumption had been named and evidence-rated, whether the adverse case had been modeled honestly, whether a falsifying signal and an accountable owner had been agreed before commitment.
The costliest losses are rarely failures of information. They are failures of decision architecture that no one measured in advance. Everything around the decision is already rated — creditworthiness, financial statements, internal controls. The decision itself is not. DQR Institute exists to set that missing standard, and to rate against it independently.
A rating is worth nothing if the rater has a stake in the grade. DQR Institute is built so that the body setting the measure has no interest in the result.
These structures are being established as DQR Institute moves from a published methodology to a fully governed institution. DQR Institute is at a founding stage: the standard is published as DQS v0 and open for scrutiny.
The Decision Before the Decision sets out the principles the standard formalizes: that a serious decision is a hypothesis about reality, that confidence without architecture is dangerous, and that the quality of a decision can be judged before its outcome is known. The book is the argument; the standard is its instrument.
The quality of the decision is often determined before the recommendation reaches the room.
Andrew V. Vasserman
Andrew is the author of The Decision Before the Decision and the founder of DQR Institute. The book's argument — that the quality of a decision can be assessed before its outcome is known — is the foundation the standard formalizes. He also founded Logyc, a separate company whose technology helps organizations meet the standard; that company operates at arm's length, and DQR Institute does not rate decisions it was paid to shape or build.
Read the methodology in full, or join the founding participants helping establish the standard and the first body of independently rated decisions.