The causal decision checklist: ten questions before you fund an intervention
Ten questions that take a team about an hour and routinely surface the assumption that would have sunk the intervention.
4 min read
How to use it
Put the people who own the decision in a room with the proposal. Work through the questions in order and write the answers down. A question without a clear answer is not a failure; it marks the part of the decision that deserves attention before money moves.
What the checklist is for
It is a lightweight version of what a causal model does formally: name the lever, name what else influences the outcome, check the evidence behind each link, and keep the reasoning where it can be reviewed. If your answers to several questions are “we are not sure”, that is a signal that building the model would pay for itself.
The ten questions
- 1
Name the action
State the one intervention you are deciding whether to fund, in a sentence anyone can read.
- 2
Name the outcome
State the single measurable outcome the action is meant to move, and over what horizon.
- 3
Check it is a lever
Confirm you can actually change the action. Variables you cannot act on are context, not levers.
- 4
List what else moves the outcome
Write every factor that plausibly influences the outcome, measured or not.
- 5
Find the shared causes
Mark any factor that influences both the action and the outcome. These are confounders.
- 6
Mark what is unmeasured
Flag every factor you cannot observe. An unmeasured shared cause can make the question unanswerable.
- 7
Source each assumption
For each link, record whether it comes from data, expert judgment or a guess.
- 8
State the range
Say how far the expected result moves if your assumptions are wrong, and whether that range includes no effect.
- 9
Compare at least two options
Never evaluate one intervention in isolation. Include doing nothing as an option.
- 10
Record the decision
Write down who decided, on what analysis, and how you will check the result against the claim.
Written by the AnantCausal team. More in the guides library.
Want the checklist run on your decision?
Bring a live decision to a walkthrough and we will work through it with you using a causal model.