Faded branches are the paths not taken. Percentages are the odds your advisors gave you.
Today · Decision 1
Quarantine now, or wait?
Your city has at least three confirmed SARS cases and up to ten more suspected. Whatever you decide today, your advisors will report back in two weeks with more data, and you will get to decide again.
Show the advisors' cost estimates for every path
Decision today
Decision in two weeks
If the outbreak is severe
If the outbreak is mild
Two weeks later · Chance
Your advisors return with new data
There was a 50% chance the outbreak would look severe by now and a 50% chance it would look mild. Looking severe doesn't mean it is severe: the early numbers are noisy.
The outbreak looks…
Really severe: Really mild:
Two weeks later · Decision 2
End of the outbreak · Chance
Only time will tell
The outbreak turned out to be…
Total cost to your city
Debrief
Your path through the outbreak
Now return to the questions below and record what you decided and how you feel about it in hindsight. In class we'll build the full decision tree behind this scenario.
In the real world you can only do this once - make sure you note what you decided below. Once you do that you can experiment with alternative paths.