Judge performance without letting one recent result or known outcome rewrite the quality of the underlying work.
Open situation →Reasoning Practice · Starter
The last quarter becomes the whole year
An employee had one difficult final quarter. The annual review now focuses almost entirely on that period and gives little weight to earlier results.
Your decision
What is the best first correction?
Show the best first move
A. Use the same predefined criteria across the full review period and inspect evidence by period.
Why this move helps
Recent events are easier to recall. Predefined criteria and period coverage reduce the chance that one vivid interval becomes the entire evaluation.
Evidence still missing
- Evidence across the full review period.
- Criteria and expectations set before the review.
- Comparable treatment of positive and negative examples.
Evidence note
Availability may explain the heavy focus on recent events. The latest quarter can still deserve more weight when the role or expectations changed.
Next action
Build a criterion-by-period evidence table before setting the rating.
Best first lens
Availability Heuristic
Use the lens to ask a better question. It does not prove that a person or team has a cognitive bias.
Other defensible lenses
The situation may have more than one explanation.
Continue the path
Situation → skill → technique → action.
You can review your reasoning process without confusing confidence, outcome and hindsight with decision quality.
Build this skill →Fix the comparison dimensions before a preferred option makes the criteria move.
Run the technique →