What is decision quality vs outcome quality?

Decision quality vs outcome quality is a concept in personal epistemology: After a decision plays out review whether your framework served you well.

Example: You chose to hire a contractor instead of a full-time employee. Six months later the project is over budget and behind schedule. Your instinct says 'bad decision.' But when you review your decision journal, you find that the information you had at the time — budget constraints, uncertain scope, a three-month timeline — made the contractor choice reasonable. The outcome was bad. The decision process was sound. The real lesson is that your scope estimation model needs work, not that you should never hire contractors.

This concept is part of Phase 23 (Decision Frameworks) in the How to Think curriculum, which builds the epistemic infrastructure for decision frameworks.