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thinking-probabilistic

separate

Use when forecasting, estimating, or sizing risk — anchor on base rates, give ranges, update prior→likelihood→posterior on evidence, and factor unmeasured quantities into order-of-magnitude bounds.

When to use

• Timeline, effort, or outcome forecasts where the true value is uncertain.
• Risk sizing for a change, migration, deploy, or launch.
• Any moment you are about to state a confident single number you cannot actually know.
• New evidence arrives and a prior estimate should move.

When not to use

• The quantity is measurable or look-up-able — measure or look it up.
• The decision is invariant across the whole plausible range — skip the estimate and act.
• There is no real reference class and you would invent a base rate — label it a guess, not a calibrated forecast.
• You only need a binary gate and already have a decisive observation — do not pad with ceremony.

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