Tacit Academy

Judgment, Delivery, and Decision-Making in Engineering

Adam Thackeray

25+ years building enterprise financial and security platforms at massive scale

The biggest problems come from poor communication, weak leadership, fuzzy accountability and organizational inertia

Most Engineering problems aren't technical

Learn to reason from reality, understand systems and their ripple effect and detect weak signals and emerging risks

Strip problems down to what actually matters

Make defensible decisions under uncertainty and pressure.

Decide when others hesitate

Strengthen inner confidence, inspire others, and sharpen leadership skills through hands-on exercises and real-world tools

Leadership Coach 

Ha Tran

Founder, Ex-Google, Chief of Staff, U.S Department of State Professional fellow

Cohort 1

Cohort 3

In high-stakes moments, three things show up at once: 1. what you know is true2. what it might cost3. what you think you should do Most people try to resolve this by thinking harder or speaking better.It does not work. Because the problem is not clarity. The problem is authority. When no one is clearly leading, you: - hesitate even when you know the answer- over-explain to justify your position- say something, then walk it back- leave conversations feeling misaligned This is not a confidence issue. It is a governance issue. What changes after this workshop- You speak without over-explaining or softening your position- You make decisions faster without needing full certainty- You stop negotiating against yourself in real time- You handle pushback without collapsing or escalating- You stay aligned with your decision after the conversation ends This workshop is for you if: - You know what you want to say, but change it in the moment- You make decisions, then second-guess them after- You feel tension between what is true and what is acceptable- You are seen as capable, but do not feel fully in control under pressureMaximum 20 people/workshop to keep it intimate and practical.

You are not confused. You are running multiple leaders.

Make decisions under pressure without internal conflict

Senior leaders and managers looking to lead with conviction and assurance.

High-performing professionals who want to build stronger, more confident leadership skills.

Emerging leaders who seek to develop self-assurance, overcome self-doubt, and project confidence in high-stakes situations.

You'll learn to make consequential calls with confidence, understanding your own strength, using a practical methodology

4xCEO, ex-global COO, Strategic Advisor

Judit Petho

4xCEO, ex-global COO, Strategic Advisor (SMEs, startups, PE-backed)

You've been in the room when a decision stalled for weeks — because no one wanted to own it.You've also seen the opposite: a leader moves fast with total confidence, and gets it badly wrong in ways that took years to unwind.Both are decision failures, and both are far more common than anyone admits.AI is only making it harder, with more ability to analyse, which doesn't guarantee better judgment.What separates the leaders who consistently make sound calls — under pressure, with incomplete information, in high-stakes conditions — isn't intelligence or experience alone. It's a set of specific mental habits and structural practices that most leaders have never been taught explicitly.This is not a theoretical framework, nor a confidence-building seminar or a mindfulness approach to difficult decisions.It is a practical, rigorous programme built from decades of real executive experience — tested across multiple CEO roles, a Global COO position spanning international markets, and refined through advisory work with senior leaders and boards navigating the decisions that actually keep them up at night.Guest speakers: an AI scientist/founder, and a MedTech CEO

Make consequential calls with confidence - in the age of AI

Clarity on your own default failure mode

Dealing with trade-offs 

Apply my decision framework 

When to trust your instinct 

How to keep getting better at making tough decisions

How the best teams make decisions

CEOs, COOs, CFOs, MDs and board-level leaders who make high-stakes decisions regularly — and want to make them better.

Leaders who report directly to the C-suite and contribute to high-stakes decisions regularly — and want to understand them better.

Make ambiguous decisions quickly, reduce risk, and sell the direction you choose

Former Amazon VP; 70+ patents; led 800+

OpenAI

Netflix

Anthropic

NVIDIA

Stripe

Ethan Evans

Former Amazon VP (15+ years); 70+ patents; led global teams of 800+

Most professionals don’t struggle because they “can’t decide.” They struggle because decisions are messy: incomplete data, loud stakeholders, moving targets, and the fear of being wrong. The result is hesitation, endless analysis, or rushed calls that create churn and erode trust.This workshop gives you a practical system to make high-quality decisions fast, without gambling.You’ll learn a repeatable decision loop you can use immediately: Decide → Ship → Watch → Adjust. You’ll learn how to decide at ~70% certainty — moving with speed while staying grounded in signals, risk framing, and reversibility. You’ll leave with a monitoring plan for your next real decision so you know exactly what to watch, when to revisit, and what “success” looks like.And when things go sideways (because they will), you’ll have a crisis recipe that builds trust: clear ownership, clean communication, and fast learning instead of blame.Finally, you’ll get specific ways to use AI as a decision accelerator — to sharpen options, pressure-test assumptions, and surface risks — without outsourcing your judgment.

Become a trusted decision-maker: decide at 70%, ship, monitor, adjust — effectively handle crises and use AI to strengthen your judgment.

A repeatable decision loop

How to decide at ~70% certainty (without gambling)

A clear monitoring plan for your next decision

A “crisis recipe” that builds trust

Specific ways to use AI without outsourcing judgment

High-velocity ICs: Owns ambiguous work. needs a fast, safe decision loop to ship, monitor, and adjust without overthinking

People leaders: Makes calls with imperfect info, wants a repeatable system to decide, align stakeholders, and handle crises with trust

Cross-functional leads: PM/ops/eng/sales/etc, needs better decisions across teams, clear monitoring, and AI leverage without losing judgment

Make high-stakes product calls with clarity to earn a bigger scope and influence

Product & Design Leader at Owtcome

Owtcome

Krasi Bozhinkova

Product & Design Leader, turning product success into repeatable growth

July 2026

The gap between mid-level and senior is not knowledge. It is judgment. The ability to make the call earlier, with less certainty, and explain why it matters in terms the business cares about.You may already have strong instincts, but instincts alone don’t earn trust. What gets your work second-guessed is not always that someone else is right. It is that they can connect the decision to adoption, retention, revenue, or strategic advantage more clearly than you can.This course is about closing that judgment gap. You will learn how to identify the real decision inside a messy debate, name the trade-off others avoid, and defend your logic before perfect data arrives. It blends product, design, and business thinking because role boundaries are disappearing and the expectation to make an impact has never been higher.The goal is to become the person leadership brings in earlier, trusts with harder problems, and gives a bigger scope.

Make high-stakes product decisions with clearer logic, stronger conviction, and language that leadership can trust.

Frame the real decision behind a messy debate

Build for critical user needs without waiting for perfect data

Know when to improve, pivot, or rethink your roadmap

Connect every product and design decision to a growth loop

PMs, designers, and cross-functional leaders with 3-5 years of experience, working through ambiguity, trade-offs, and business outcomes.

Level of experience

Bring one live product, feature, or strategic decision to apply the course directly to your own context.

What to prepare

This course is designed for practitioners who want to make better product decisions in AI-shaped markets, not to teach a specific AI tool.

No technical AI background required

Mid to Senior level PMs stuck in execution mode who want to become the senior person leadership trusts to make the harder decisions

Designers who are strategic but can't articulate it and lose the argument when they don’t connect the decision to business impact.

Developers stepping up to own a product area, who need a repeatable way to make hard decisions with incomplete information.

Judgment, Delivery, and Decision-Making in Engineering

What you'll learn

Why this topic matters

You'll learn from

Adam Thackeray