Record evidence and uncertainties for staying, changing roles, or taking an offer; separate prompts are not combined into a score or forecast.
What this tool is for
Record evidence and uncertainties for staying, changing roles, or taking an offer; separate prompts are not combined into a score or forecast.
Method and limits
Check the example, confirm inputs against your documents, and verify official rules before relying on estimates.
Separate evidence from preference
Use one column of your own notes for facts you can point to and another for interpretations or hopes. A written offer, a recent performance review, a completed work sample, and a recurring household cost are different kinds of evidence; a rumour about a reorganisation or a promise of future scope deserves a different confidence label. Record when each item was last checked and who can confirm it. This worksheet does not combine those notes into a score. Its purpose is to help you compare a current role, an external move, or a smaller experiment without pretending that incomplete evidence has equal weight.
Illustrative scenario: compare three paths
Illustrative scenario: someone is weighing continued work in a current team, accepting a written offer, or asking for a bounded internal project before deciding. The offer path may have clearer pay but an unfamiliar manager. Staying may preserve relationships while leaving authority unresolved. The project may reveal whether the desired work is available without requiring an immediate exit. Write the evidence each path would produce, the cost of waiting, and the point at which you would reconsider. This does not establish which path will succeed; it shows what could be learned before making a harder-to-reverse commitment.
What to verify next
Choose one question whose answer could genuinely change your preference. Ask the hiring manager who approves the work and how success is reviewed; ask the current manager what scope can be granted and by when; inspect the offer for fixed-versus-variable definitions; or test the commute at the actual travel time. Avoid collecting information that cannot affect the decision. If a promised change has no owner, document, date, or consequence when missed, treat it as uncertain. Revisit your notes when that evidence arrives rather than letting an old impression silently become a fact.
Questions for the next conversation
- Does the Compass recommend a move?
- No. It helps organise evidence and unknowns; the decision remains yours and may depend on priorities this page cannot observe.
- How can I compare options fairly?
- Use the same time horizon and categories, distinguish guaranteed terms from contingent promises, and keep the source beside every important claim.
Keep a decision record that can be revisited
Write the date, options considered, strongest evidence, material unknowns, and next action in ordinary language. Avoid reducing the record to a single total or colour. Add who could confirm each uncertain claim and how long you are willing to wait for the answer. A colleague may help examine work scope; a family member may understand household constraints; a professional adviser may address contractual or financial questions. Those perspectives are different, so note which question each person can answer. Review the note after new evidence arrives, not whenever anxiety spikes. This gives you a way to tell whether the circumstances changed or only your interpretation.
Do not confuse comparison with certainty
A table can make options easier to discuss, but it cannot reveal a manager's future conduct, the health of a team, the durability of a product, or whether the work will remain satisfying. Treat every statement as one of three things: confirmed, plausible but unconfirmed, or unknown. If the current role has a known constraint and the external option has an unknown constraint, do not call them equivalent simply because both are uncertain. Ask targeted questions that could reduce one uncertainty at a time. Where evidence remains unavailable, decide whether you can tolerate that uncertainty rather than inventing a reassuring answer.
Prepare for the conversation you need
Choose a person with access to the fact, then ask a question narrow enough to receive a concrete answer. A recruiter can confirm written terms but may not control team budgets. A manager can explain current priorities but may not approve a future reorganisation. A colleague can describe their experience without speaking for the whole organisation. Frame the question around your decision: what will I own, what must be true before I join, or when will this scope be reviewed? Record the response and its limits. If the answer is verbal, request a written summary so that later conversations do not depend on memory or interpretation.