Decision matrix online

What is a decision matrix?

A decision matrix is a table that compares several options against the criteria that genuinely matter. Each criterion carries a weight, saying how much it counts in this particular decision, and each option gets a score on each criterion. Multiplying and adding gives a score that ranks the options.

If you work with CoachPro Tools, you can bring this work into the session with the platform's interactive tools, record what the client discovers in Live Session Notes and pick it up again from their client record and client space. You will find the step-by-step process below.

The valuable part is not the final number. It is what you have to do to get there: name the criteria out loud and weight them. Plenty of people discover right there that what they said mattered is not what weighs most, and that is the conversation the session was looking for.

What it is for in a coaching session

• Taking the decision out of the loop. Whatever spins around in your head takes up less space in writing, and can be looked at.
• Making the criteria visible. It is the part nobody does alone, and the one that changes the conversation most.
• Separating weight from score. An option can be excellent at something that barely matters, and that shows at a glance.
• Spotting the criterion that decides. There is nearly always a single one that splits the decision. Naming it clarifies more than the result.
• Giving permission to decide. Sometimes the client already knows, and only needs to see their own reasoning laid out.

How to use it with your clients in CoachPro Tools

This free version lets you try the exercise. In CoachPro Tools you have the Decisional Balance to work through with your clients: from the client record you choose it and assign it to that client.

During the session. Complete it with the client live, in person or by sharing your screen in the platform's video call, and note in Live Session Notes the options, the criteria that weigh most and the decision the client chooses.

Afterwards. Save the result, download the PDF and it stays in the history of their client record. If you share it, the client sees it in their client space alongside the actions you agreed on.

Between sessions. The client tells you in the Client Log how putting the decision into practice went. In the next session you open their client record and pick up from there.

You agree a six-session process with a client. In the first session you review their goal and note it in Live Session Notes from their client record. You share the tool in their client space so they can complete it before the session. From there you focus on the coaching: every session has its appointment in the calendar, its video call, its notes and the tools you work on together live. The client sees what you agreed and their actions in their client space, and writes to you in the Client Log between sessions. You see each client's whole process in one place, from first contact to closing, without jumping between apps.

It works the same whether you do life, executive, team or wellbeing coaching: you prepare each session from the client record, work through the interactive tools live and follow up between sessions on the same coaching platform.

What matters happens in the sessions. With your client you work live on the Wheel of Life, S.M.A.R.T. goals, values, limiting beliefs or emotional management, and every tool is saved with its date in their client record. That way you arrive at each session knowing what you worked on, what you agreed and which actions they completed, and the client experiences an organised process from start to finish.

How to use it, step by step

1. Write the decision in one sentence. If it does not fit in one sentence, it is probably two decisions.
2. List the real options. Include "carry on as I am": it is usually the one nobody writes down and the one that wins most often.
3. Draw out the criteria. Ask "what would the good option have to meet?" until no more come up.
4. Set the weights before the scores. Done the other way round, the weights quietly bend so the favourite option wins.
5. Score each cell. Quickly, without agonising over every box.
6. Look at the result and listen to the body. If the number wins and the face says no, a criterion is missing.

If you support career decisions, the article on software for career coaches shows the whole process inside the platform.

How to read the result

• A large gap between first and second: the decision was already made, it just needed seeing.
• A tiny gap: the options are equivalent under the criteria that were set. Either a criterion is missing, or it genuinely does not matter and what is needed is to choose and move on.
• One criterion at weight 5 deciding everything: the decision may actually be about that criterion, not about the options.
• All weights equal: usually means nothing has been prioritised yet. Worth going back over them.
• An option you do not like wins: that is the best possible outcome. There is an unnamed criterion in there, and finding it is the work.

In CoachPro Tools, write down in Live Session Notes the client's exact words: they stay in their client record for the next session.

Questions to open the conversation

If the client wants to keep working on it between sessions, share the tool in their client space and ask them to tell you in the Client Log how it went.

Common mistakes

• Setting the weights after the scores. They bend without meaning to, so the favourite option wins.
• Too many criteria. Beyond six, everything averages out and no option stands out.
• Criteria that are not the client’s. If a criterion belongs to their mother or their boss, it is worth naming it that way.
• Treating the number as an order. The matrix orders the reasoning; the person decides.

Frequently asked questions