**Parent Topic**: [[Software/README]] SRE aspires to **structured, rational, data-driven decision making**, which requires four disciplines: - The **basis for the decision is agreed in advance**, not justified ex post facto. - The **inputs are clear.** - **Assumptions are explicitly stated.** - **Data wins over feelings, hunches, or seniority.** The named anti-pattern (from Schmidt and Rosenberg) is the **HiPPO** — the "Highest-Paid Person's Opinion." Decisions should be *informed rather than prescriptive*, and made without deference to personal opinion, including that of the most senior person in the room. This rests on two baseline assumptions about the team: that everyone **has the users' best interests at heart**, and that everyone **can figure out how to proceed from the available data**. Those assumptions are what make it safe to let data, rather than rank, settle disputes. The cross-industry survey shows this isn't universal — many industries lean on playbooks or "if it ain't broke" conservatism instead (see [[Conservative Decision Modes]]). Data-driven decision-making suits Google's fast-changing, high-trust, high-skill environment, where novel situations arise constantly and a prescriptive binder can't anticipate them. The deeper point: *agree on how you'll decide before you're in the heat of the decision*, so the choice turns on evidence rather than on who outranks whom.