King Mark
King Mark writes about thinking frameworks, decision-making, and the practice of building clearer mental models.
Academy
- First Principles thinking, with examples
First principles thinking means reasoning from what's verifiably true, not from analogy. It's expensive to apply but produces ideas analogical thinking can't reach. Here's how it actually works.
- How to run a premortem (and why every team should)
A premortem assumes the project failed, then asks what went wrong. It's the cheapest pre-launch risk audit you'll ever run. Here's how to run one well.
- OKRs vs KPIs: what's the difference?
OKRs set ambitious direction; KPIs track ongoing health. Teams that confuse the two end up measuring what they shouldn't and ignoring what they should. Here's how to keep them separate.
- Pareto Analysis: the 80/20 principle, applied
Roughly 80% of outcomes come from 20% of causes. Pareto Analysis is the discipline of finding which 20% — and then doing something different with it.
- Porter's Five Forces: a beginner's guide
Five forces decide whether a market is worth competing in. Read them right and you avoid markets that look attractive but aren't. Here's how to actually run the analysis.
- Reverse brainstorming: solve problems backwards
Stuck on a problem? Instead of asking how to solve it, ask how to cause it. Reverse brainstorming surfaces the obstacles your regular thinking refuses to see.
- RICE score calculator: the formula, explained with 3 worked examples
How to actually compute a RICE score — the formula, the 5-point Impact scale, the 50/80/100% Confidence rule, and three full worked examples with real numbers.
- The Eisenhower Matrix: urgent vs important, explained
Sort what's on your plate by urgency and importance, then act differently on each quadrant. A working guide to the matrix that fixes reactive weeks.
- The Jobs-to-be-Done framework, explained
JTBD says people don't buy products — they hire them to do a job. Reframing what you sell as 'a job customers hire it for' changes which features matter, which competitors you really have, and which markets are open.
- The RICE framework for prioritization
RICE scores ideas by Reach × Impact × Confidence ÷ Effort, turning subjective debate into a defensible ranked list. Here's how to use it without faking the numbers.
- What is a SWOT analysis?
SWOT is a 2×2 grid that surfaces a position's internal strengths and weaknesses alongside external opportunities and threats. Here is how to run one in 5 steps.
Blog
- The framework I use to pick a framework
There are 100+ thinking frameworks in the library. Three questions get you to the right one in under two minutes, every time.
- How Netflix used SWOT before the streaming pivot — a closer look
Before Reed Hastings bet the company on streaming in 2007, the leadership team ran a SWOT that named the threat almost everyone else missed. A look at what they put in each quadrant, and why most teams do the exercise wrong.
- Welcome to the FrameworkList blog
Why we are starting a blog about thinking frameworks, and what to expect.
- Why most frameworks fail (and how to use them anyway)
A framework is a structured prompt for a conversation, not a machine that produces answers. Treat it as the second and it will disappoint you reliably.