01 / Macondo, 2010
Deepwater Horizon
11 lives
The test readings were anomalous. What made experienced people read them as acceptable?
The case and its sources, chapter 1 ▾Planned for 13 February 2027
What Are We Missing
How to Think More Clearly Before You Decide
On 20 April 2010 a drilling crew read an anomalous test as acceptable. Eleven men died. Smart people. Good information. The wrong decision. What were they missing?
A way to ask, before the decision is made and cannot be called back, what you might be missing.
For managers, engineers and teams whose decisions other people live with.
By Zafar Alam - civil engineer and Chartered Construction Manager, about 12 years on major projects.
Until launch
–Days
–Hours
–Minutes
–Seconds
One critical-thinking tip every week, plus launch updates. Nothing else.
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01 / Why does it matter?
Everyone missed
one question.
Different industries. Different rooms. The same gap: the problem was never properly framed before the decision. The failures below are the evidence, and each opens a chapter of the book. All of them are in the public record.
The failure record
- 0111livesDeepwater Horizon, 2010
- 02$9bnvaluationTheranos, 2014
- 037livesChallenger, 1986
- 0411million carsVolkswagen, 2015
- 05$639bnin assetsLehman Brothers, assets at 31 May 2008
- 06$125millionMars Climate Orbiter, 1999
- 346 deathsTwo Boeing 737 MAX crashes, 2018-2019
- $65bn total cost to BPDeepwater Horizon, 2010
- More than $460m eventual lossKnight Capital, 1 August 2012; SEC finding, 16 October 2013
- 73 seconds from launch to breakupChallenger, 1986
- $20.8bn settlement approved, 2016Deepwater Horizon
- 15 workers killed, 180 injuredBP Texas City refinery, 2005
- 36°F the coldest shuttle launch to that dateChallenger, 1986
- 158 years in business before it filed for bankruptcyLehman Brothers, 2008
- 1,134 people killedRana Plaza garment factory collapse, Bangladesh, 2013
- $4bn in criminal fines and penaltiesDeepwater Horizon
- 4.45 factor between the two units in useMars Climate Orbiter, 1999
- 28 emergency workers dead within four monthsChernobyl, 1986
Sources: House 737 MAX report · Oil Spill Commission · SEC on Knight Capital · SEC finding, 16 October 2013 · US Chemical Safety Board · ILO on Rana Plaza · IAEA on Chornobyl · the book’s Sources register.
One dot, one life.
Four of the failures in this book, drawn at the same scale.
Boeing 737 MAX2018-2019, two crashes · 346 lives
Deepwater Horizon20 April 2010 · 11 lives
Challenger28 January 1986 · 7 lives
Columbia1 February 2003 · 7 lives
Sources: Boeing 737 MAX · Deepwater Horizon · Challenger · Columbia
Fifteen chapters examining real-world decisions, one question each
02 / The crisis, 2008
The financial crash
$639bn Lehman Brothers assets at 31 May 2008
A model seemed to work for decades, and the world changed beneath it.
The case and its sources, chapter 2 ▾03 / Silicon Valley, 2014
Theranos
$9bn valuation
Prestige met one question too few: did the device actually work?
The case and its sources, chapter 3 ▾04 / Information, 2005-2019
Wikipedia and the troll farm
126 million potentially served IRA content on Facebook (estimate)
In 2005 Nature compared Wikipedia with Britannica. Separately, Facebook estimated in 2017 that approximately 126 million people may have been served content from Internet Research Agency pages during 2015-2017.
The case and its sources, chapter 4 ▾05 / The launch, 1986
Challenger
7 lives
Engineers warned against launch in the cold. Then the room changed what counted as proof.
The case and its sources, chapter 5 ▾06 / The test, 2015
Volkswagen
11 million cars
The cars knew when they were being tested, and performed accordingly.
The case and its sources, chapter 6 ▾07 / The units, 1999
Mars Climate Orbiter
$125 million
The knowledge needed to prevent the loss existed on both sides of the country. It never travelled between two buildings.
The case and its sources, chapter 7 ▾08 / Two rooms
Apollo 13 and Columbia
7 crew lost on Columbia. Three came home from Apollo 13.
One room supported open reporting and brought three men home. The other let a warning soften as it travelled upward.
The case and its sources, chapter 8 ▾09 / Macondo, 2010
Deepwater Horizon, again
3 companies held pieces of the warning
The knowledge was on the rig. It stayed in pieces.
The case and its sources, chapter 9 ▾10 / Microsoft, 2014
From know-it-all to learn-it-all
2014 a new chief executive
Could a whole organisation be asked to rehearse better thinking until it became ordinary?
The case and its sources, chapter 10 ▾11 / Flight 1549, 2009
Sullenberger and the Hudson
207.6 seconds
Not a checklist executed and not a guess: every operation the book has named, running at the speed the situation demanded.
The case and its sources, chapter 11 ▾12 / Utah, 1986
The Challenger teleconference
8.45 p.m. Eastern
A telephone conference. A room that would not hear its own engineers.
The case and its sources, chapter 12 ▾13 / Merced, 1980s
Lia Lee
3 months old at her first seizure
Two coherent systems met in one hospital. Thinking harder could not mend what only thinking differently could.
The case and its sources, chapter 13 ▾14 / Radiology, 2020
The mammogram study
5.7 points fewer false positives
The machine outperformed six radiologists. The more instructive story is what happened next, to the people.
The case and its sources, chapter 14 ▾15 / Sponheim, 1492
The abbot who praised scribes
1492
The slow tool teaches what the fast tool skips.
The case and its sources, chapter 15 ▾Swipe for all fifteen chapters
The information was there. The question wasn't. This book is about that question.
And in everyday life
The failures that make no noise.
Big failures get commissions and transcripts. Most gaps in thinking are quieter - a headline, a price tag, a room in agreement.
01 / The headline.
Shared widely. Nobody read past it.
02 / The purchase.
A week comparing prices. Not a minute asking whether we needed it.
03 / The agreement.
Everyone agreed. Nobody asked why.
These three are free to download and post, in the book's design - in Downloads ▾
The premise
It wasn't a lack of information.
In these cases the facts were available, and a person, a team or an institution still could not see what those facts meant together. So we need a way to ask the missing question. The question before the answer.
“What was missing was never the information. It was the question.”
From the preface, What Are We Missing?
Read how it starts, or try the method on your own decision.
Read the free sample Run a decision through PRISM02 / Why this book?
Reading about error is not enough on its own.
The gap
The shelf this book sits on is not empty: fine accounts of how the mind errs, catalogues of biases, gripping autopsies of decisions that went wrong.
What is missing from that shelf is a working discipline - something you can run before the decision, in the meeting, at your desk, in the small hours when the answer looks obvious.
What this is
One framework, not a hundred effects.
Five moves for the minutes before a decision, each made trainable - and built for the world you decide in now, where a machine will draft your analysis and sound sure of itself while it does.
Why believe it
The record, not anecdote, carries the cases: official commissions, hearing transcripts and peer-reviewed research.
Every chapter's sources are listed in full, free to check. The Sources, free ↓
03 / Who is it for?
A manager before the hire
You are about to sign off a hire, a budget or a plan that other people will have to live with.
A founder before the signature
The numbers look good and the room is nodding. This is the minute before you commit.
A doctor before the diagnosis
The first diagnosis fits. This is the minute before you stop looking.
A parent before the answer
A child asks something hard and you already have an answer. This is the minute before you give it.
And everyone whose decisions others live with
When someone else pays for a wrong call, the minute before matters most.
04 / Who is behind it?
Zafar Alam, civil engineer and Chartered Construction Manager (MCIOB). About 12 years on major projects, five years writing this book. Full bio ↓
05 / How does it work?
Meet PRISM.
PRISM is a five-move check you run before a decision hardens - at your desk, in a meeting, alone. It exists because smart people with good information still miss the question. Four moves in sequence, one watching over them all; what you take away is a decision you can defend out loud. Select a letter to look closer.
P / 01
Problem Framing
Are we solving the right problem?
In plain words: saying what is actually being decided, before any solution gets a hearing.
When solutions arrive before the problem is agreed, the answer may be precise and still be wrong.
In the record - Volkswagen: the problem on the table was "pass the test", not "build a clean car".
What you'll be able to do: say the real decision out loud in one sentence.
PRISM is a synthesis of tested parts, not a separately validated model. Explore the framework in full in the book.
One case, all five moves
Challenger, 28 January 1986.
PProblem Framing
The room was asked the wrong question: "can you prove it will fail?" The standing engineering question had always been the other way round: "can you show it is safe to fly?"
RResearch
The O-ring risk was in the record for years. The people holding the uncomfortable evidence argued against launching in the cold, the night before.
IInterpretation
The burden of proof flipped: instead of the hardware proving itself safe, the engineers were asked to prove it would fail - in conditions never flown before.
SSynthesis
Cold temperatures, a known erosion problem, a schedule under pressure. Each piece got a local explanation; nobody laid them on one table.
MMetacognition
Confidence outran the evidence and nobody checked the process. Seventy-three seconds after launch, seven people were lost. The Rogers Commission found the risk had been known for years.
Chapter 12 tells the launch decision in full - the book ▾
The five moves on one page: the PRISM checklist ↓. The five moves on one case: the PRISM one-pager
Run the five moves on a decision of yours: the PRISM decision audit. Nineteen questions from the book, each with a check you can use: Questions, answered.
The whole book on one page - PRISM and all 15 chapters ↗
The method, in your hands
See it work on your own decision.
Take a decision sitting on your desk right now. Run it through PRISM - one question per move. Be honest; it is for your own thinking.
Try it now
Run your own decision through PRISM.
Type a decision sitting on your desk, then walk it through all five moves in your own words. At the end, your decision and answers are sent to an AI model, which reads them back to you move by move. This site does not save them. The moves themselves are explained in the method.
The decision
What is sitting on your desk?
One sentence is enough. PRISM will walk it through its five moves with you, one move at a time.
P / 01 - Problem framing
Are we solving the right problem?
R / 02 - Research
What would prove you wrong?
I / 03 - Interpretation
What else could this mean?
S / 04 - Synthesis
What do all the pieces say together?
M / 05 - Metacognition
How confident should you be - and what are you missing?
Your PRISM run
Working through your decision
Taking it through the five moves, with Metacognition watching over all of them.
Written by an AI from your answers, using the book’s PRISM method.
Who you become
The habit of taking a problem apart.
A difficulty arrives looking like a wall, solid and total. The wall stands because nobody asks what it is built from. This book trains the question until it is a habit.
1
Frames a problem well
2
Reads the evidence honestly
3
Catches itself being wrong
Understanding a failure is not enough on its own - so every chapter closes in protocols, small deliberate practices you run this week.
06 / What is inside?
The question is
the beginning.
What Are We Missing? How to Think More Clearly Before You Decide.
This is not self-help. It is a working discipline - a route you run, cases you can check, practice you keep.
Before you decide to read - the preface, in brief
The question on the cover came from work.
Where the question came from is a story told in The author.
The book opens on Deepwater Horizon (the first case). It does not treat that as a failure of intelligence. It asks how the evidence was read, how a room handled doubt, and how to make the missing question easier to ask in time.
The promise is a discipline, not certainty. PRISM is a working route through the problem, the evidence, the interpretation and the decision, with a check on your own confidence throughout. You read it once; you run it for the rest of your working life.
It was written for the world you actually decide in now. A machine will draft your analysis, summarise your evidence and sound confident doing it. The oldest problem in judgement has met its newest amplifier, and this book was built with that amplifier already in the room.
Inside the book
Fifteen chapters, one question - in three widening circles.
Each card opens into the chapter's own bibliography: pick a chapter, see the works behind it. Chapter titles are from the current typeset edition.
The notes
586
Numbered endnotes
1. The Foundations of Critical Thinking64
2. The Machinery of Thinking45
3. The Bugs in the Machinery51
4. What the Machine Eats29
5. The Right Tool for the Job28
6. Deciding What Matters23
7. Experience Is Not the Teacher30
8. Whether the Room Will Let You Say It28
9. What the Room Does With What It Hears31
10. Building Critical Thinking Habits20
11. Integrated Decision Architecture30
12. Group Judgment and Failure Prevention88
13. Ethics, Cultural Intelligence, and Moral Reasoning in Critical Thinking38
14. Critical Thinking in the AI Era44
15. The Last Choice - Sovereignty in the Age of Machines37
Notes as printed in each chapter’s Notes and Sources list: 586 numbered chapter endnotes, none in A Note on Method.
Circle I - The mind CHAPTERS 1-7
What your own machinery does before anyone else is involved.
01The Foundations of Critical Thinking
The case · 01 / Macondo, 2010
Deepwater Horizon
11 lives
The test readings were anomalous. What made experienced people read them as acceptable?
PRISM move: Interpretation. "Low injury rate" became "safe rig", against the pressure data.
On 20 April 2010 the Macondo well blew out, killing 11. The national Commission found the failures systemic - management decisions that saved time and money while raising risk.
02The Machinery of Thinking
The case · 02 / The crisis, 2008
The financial crash
$639bn Lehman Brothers assets at 31 May 2008
A model seemed to work for decades, and the world changed beneath it.
PRISM move: Metacognition. Checking your own confidence: Alan Greenspan told a 2008 hearing he had found "a flaw in the model" - after it failed.
Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy on 15 September 2008, after 158 years in business. The official US inquiry concluded the crisis was avoidable. The book asks what a strong mind overlooks when its assumptions go untested. Asset figure: bankruptcy petition, Exhibit A, filed 15 September 2008.
03The Bugs in the Machinery
The case · 03 / Silicon Valley, 2014
Theranos
$9bn valuation
Prestige met one question too few: did the device actually work?
PRISM move: Research. A board of famous names stood in for evidence - the halo effect, where prestige is mistaken for proof. The disconfirming test was never demanded.
Fortune reported a valuation above nine billion dollars in 2014. The New York Times noted that, with one possible exception, the board lacked anyone with expertise in medical testing. By 2018 the company was gone.
04What the Machine Eats
The case · 04 / Information, 2005-2019
Wikipedia and the troll farm
126 million potentially served IRA content on Facebook (estimate)
Nature compared 42 pairs of science articles in 2005; Wikipedia averaged around four inaccuracies an entry, Britannica around three. Separately, Facebook estimated in 2017 that approximately 126 million people may have been served content from Internet Research Agency pages during 2015-2017. Source: Facebook testimony, 31 October 2017.
05The Right Tool for the Job
The case · 05 / The launch, 1986
Challenger
7 lives
Engineers warned against launch in the cold. Then the room changed what counted as proof.
PRISM move: Synthesis. The divergent data, the O-ring erosion, was filtered out to force one conclusion - agreement over the premise.
On the evening of 27 January 1986 engineers at Morton Thiokol argued against launching in a forecast 18 degrees Fahrenheit. They were overruled. Seventy-three seconds after launch the next morning, the shuttle was gone.
06Deciding What Matters
The case · 06 / The test, 2015
Volkswagen
11 million cars
The cars knew when they were being tested, and performed accordingly.
PRISM move: Problem Framing. The problem on the table was "pass the test" - not "build a clean car". What a room chooses to value decides what it will see.
An on-road test by West Virginia University found a Jetta emitting up to thirty-five times the legal limit of nitrogen oxides. On 18 September 2015 the US Environmental Protection Agency issued a Notice of Violation; Volkswagen admitted the software was in around eleven million vehicles.
07Experience Is Not the Teacher
The case · 07 / The units, 1999
Mars Climate Orbiter
$125 million
On 23 September 1999 the spacecraft fired its engine to enter orbit around Mars and was lost. Ground software delivered thruster figures in pound-seconds; the navigation team expected newton-seconds, a factor of 4.45.
Circle II - The room CHAPTERS 8-12
What happens to a decision once other people are in it.
08Whether the Room Will Let You Say It
The case · 08 / Two rooms
Apollo 13 and Columbia
7 crew lost on Columbia. Three came home from Apollo 13.
Apollo 13's flight controllers worked the problem in the open, and the crew came home on 17 April 1970. After foam struck Columbia's wing in January 2003, engineers' requests for images moved upward and were declined. Columbia broke apart on 1 February 2003; seven people died.
09What the Room Does With What It Hears
The case · 09 / Macondo, 2010
Deepwater Horizon, again
3 companies held pieces of the warning
Warning signs had surfaced for months, in fragments, on the rig and in the offices of three companies. The presidential commission's chief counsel listed "ineffective communication and siloing of information" among the management failures.
10Building Critical Thinking Habits
The case · 10 / Microsoft, 2014
From know-it-all to learn-it-all
2014 a new chief executive
Satya Nadella, chief executive from February 2014, set out to change how people thought before changing what they shipped. The chapter notes that the story reaches us mostly through the company's own accounts, and prices the evidence accordingly.
11Integrated Decision Architecture
The case · 11 / Flight 1549, 2009
Sullenberger and the Hudson
207.6 seconds
At 3.27 p.m. on 15 January 2009 US Airways Flight 1549 met a flock of Canada geese. From the word "birds" to "we're gonna brace" the cockpit recording spans 207.6 seconds. All 155 people survived. The NTSB credited the crew's judgement and resource management, together with fortunate equipment and rescue conditions.
12Group Judgment and Failure Prevention
The case · 12 / Utah, 1986
The Challenger teleconference
8.45 p.m. Eastern
On 27 January 1986 Morton Thiokol's engineers in Utah tried to stop a launch in Florida. The chapter reads that night as a narrative autopsy, then lays five cases side by side - Challenger, Columbia, the Boeing 737 MAX, Deepwater Horizon and Carillion.
Circle III - The machine CHAPTERS 13-15
Deciding well when a machine can draft the answer for free.
13Ethics, Cultural Intelligence, and Moral Reasoning in Critical Thinking
The case · 13 / Merced, 1980s
Lia Lee
3 months old at her first seizure
At three months old Lia Lee, the daughter of Hmong refugees, had her first seizure. To the paediatrician it was a medical emergency. To her parents it was a spiritual event, qaug dab peg, "the spirit catches you and you fall down".
14Critical Thinking in the AI Era
The case · 14 / Radiology, 2020
The mammogram study
5.7 points fewer false positives
On 1 January 2020 Nature published a Google Health study of screening mammograms. In the US data the AI cut false positives by 5.7 percentage points. One cancer was caught by all six radiologists and missed by the AI; another was missed by all six and caught by it.
15The Last Choice - Sovereignty in the Age of Machines
The case · 15 / Sponheim, 1492
The abbot who praised scribes
1492
Johannes Trithemius, abbot of Sponheim, wrote In Praise of Scribes to defend hand-copying against Gutenberg's presses. The chapter reads his first argument as this book's own, five centuries early, and does not claim more for him than he said.
Check the sources
Open any chapter above to see the works behind it, marked chapter by chapter. Or take the Sources PDF first - the endnote counts are in the counter above the chapters.
The Sources (PDF, free) ↓Selected chapters
What you will read
- Chapter 1
Deepwater Horizon taken apart step by step, plus the PRISM framework and a self-diagnostic table.
- Chapter 2
The five mental operations behind a decision, opening with Greenspan's 'flaw in the model' testimony.
- Chapter 3
Theranos and FTX as cases of cognitive bias, with six protocols built to interrupt them.
- Chapter 4
How to check evidence before you trust it, with a verification checklist and a guide to reading numbers.
- Chapter 5
The night before the Challenger launch, and how to match a method to the problem.
- Chapter 6
Volkswagen's emissions case, and how to weigh evidence and price your confidence.
- Chapter 7
The Mars Climate Orbiter unit mix-up and four levels of not learning.
- Chapter 8
Apollo 13 against a later failure, and what psychological safety means for speaking up.
- Chapter 9
How Deepwater Horizon's warnings stayed in pieces, and four things a team can do on Monday.
- Chapter 14
The 2020 Nature mammography study, AI sycophancy, and PRISM applied to machine-made answers.
- ScopeFifteen chapters. The book ▾
- Formats & priceKindle pre-order now - planned for 13 February 2027. Print to follow.
- How it was madeAI helped gather and test; the judgement and the final words are the author's.
- Source recordEvery chapter's sources are listed, free to check. The works behind the book ▾
How to get it
Planned for 13 February 2027.
Available to pre-order now: https://amzn.eu/d/0au4rUW3
The book is in review now. I am reading it the way it asks you to read everything: slowly, checking each claim, and sharpening whatever does not hold. The Kindle edition is available to pre-order now - planned for 13 February 2027, with print to follow. The price: as low as I can make it. This book was never meant to make money. It is what I want to leave my sons, and I want it within reach of anyone who wants to read it. Leave your email and you will hear the moment it is ready.
Find it at
What Are We Missing? is listed on the Motivated Savages indie author bookstore shelf. Release is planned for 13 February 2027.
07 / Can I read a sample?
Take it
with you.
Free to download, free to share.
Read
PDFThe free sampleThe cover, the preface and the first page of Chapter 1. 7 pages, free.↓PDFWhat this book solvesA two-page note from the author: the problem, the method, the record, and a one-page map of what the book does.↓PDFCognitive offloadingWhen the machine thinks for you - a one-page note from the author.↓Check the sources
PDFThe SourcesChapter bibliographies and claim-level source notes, grouped by type, with the chapters that cite each one. 68 pages, free.↓Explore
MapDeepwater Horizon: the case study mapThe rig, the night of 20 April 2010 hour by hour, the eleven men lost, and what followed.→Share cards - 9 images
CardTwo test readings did not agreeMacondo: the curiosity. Post it on your own channels.↓Card11 workers died. Over $20bn in settlementsMacondo: the consequences. Post it on your own channels.↓CardWhat was missing was never the informationThe question. Post it on your own channels.↓CardThe wall standsBecause nobody asks what it is built from.↓CardUnderstanding a failureIs not enough on its own. Practice helps.↓CardNobody askedWhat they were missing.↓CardThe headlineShared widely. Nobody read past it.↓CardThe purchaseA week comparing prices. Not a minute asking whether we needed it.↓CardThe agreementEveryone agreed. Nobody asked why.↓
The cards are words from the book in its own design - download and post them on your own channels; that is what they are for.
A look inside
Why I wrote it.
The most dangerous failure of the twenty-first century is not a failure of technology. It is a failure of thought: the quiet, trainable discipline by which a mind frames a problem well, reads the evidence honestly, then catches itself being wrong. Employers say critical thinking is the skill they most want and the one they least find, and schools still test the answer rather than the asking. Who teaches the asking? Into that gap has stepped a machine that will think, fluently and instantly, on our behalf. It will answer questions you never asked, in prose more confident than most experts, at a speed no colleague can match, and it will not once ask what the answer is missing. The oldest problem in judgment has met its newest amplifier.From the preface. The page shown is where it opens.Read the free sample
08 / Want to review it?
Read it before anyone else.
What you get
An advance review copy of the book, sent to you by email.
What I ask of you
Read it, judge it on its merits and say so plainly. Send your feedback by the end of January 2027. Applying takes about two minutes, and every application is read by the author.
How many places
I approve review-copy requests one at a time. Each approved copy is stamped with the reviewer's name.
Nothing you send appears anywhere without your consent.
09 / Who wrote it?
Built on real decisions.
I'm a Chartered Construction Manager (MCIOB) with a Masters in Construction Management. For about 12 years I've delivered major infrastructure and energy projects - first in the Middle East, then in the UK. On major projects I manage subcontractors and the decisions are mine; hundreds of people live with them.
Why does a construction manager write a book about thinking? Because I began this one after years on sites watching capable people with good information still fail to decide - not for lack of intelligence or data, but because the question that mattered never got asked in time. The book is my answer: five years of reading and testing, turned into a method you can run in the minutes before a decision. It is my second book.
For review enquiries, email [email protected].
Email enquiries ↗LinkedIn ↗ORCID ↗Already published
The Cognitive Crisis in AI-Augmented Work
A fully rewritten new edition about human judgement and AI, for parents first. Second edition, October 2026. ISBN 979-8161264164.
View on Amazon ↗A reader of my earlier book, on Amazon
★★★★★
“We always hear about AI taking jobs but Zafar Alam’s journal is the first thing I’ve seen that actually talks about it taking over our minds… he shows with some really solid research how we’re losing that raw thinking power just by offloading the small stuff to apps.”
Sagar Poojary · 5 out of 5 stars · Verified Purchase
Amazon India, 19 January 2026 · reviewing The Cognitive Crisis in AI-Augmented Work (Kindle Edition)
Watch
10 / Reviews and updates
In the open.
Where this book has gone for independent review, and exactly what has come back. A name below means the book was sent or handed over - never that the person endorses it. What comes back will be quoted exactly as sent, with the reviewer's name.
Review copies are out. Advance copies are with named reviewers and domain experts, handed over in person or sent directly.
Named reviewers, their roles and where each one stands are on the review page.
Dated updates
Published by others
8 October 2026 / Countercurrents
In Countercurrents
Countercurrents has published my column, “A climate promise is not a flood defence.” Read it there ↗ Author page ↗
My writing channels
October 2026 / Substack
On Substack
Five columns on Substack: The change nobody rechecked; A forecast with no number is only a mood; A lesson is not learned because we wrote it down; Nobody writes alone; When one gauge disagrees.
9 October 2026 / Bear Blog
On Bear Blog
The change nobody rechecked, on my Bear Blog. Read it there ↗
October 2026 / Social
Follow the author
New columns and shorts between books: Substack ↗ Bear Blog ↗ X ↗ Instagram ↗ YouTube ↗
Press releases
10 October 2026 / SubmitPR
Second edition, out now
Press release: the second edition of The Cognitive Crisis in AI-Augmented Work is out now. Read it there ↗
10 October 2026 / SubmitPR
What Are We Missing? due 13 February 2027
Press release: What Are We Missing? How to Think More Clearly Before You Decide is due on 13 February 2027. Read it there ↗
Other updates
Catalogues and profiles
Listed in reader catalogues and profiles - see the full record.
Announcements
Where the books are listed
3 October 2026 / BookLab by Bjorn
BookLab by Bjorn will consider it in February
BookLab by Bjorn, a YouTube book channel, replied: “It’s a good fit for the list, and we’ll consider it when it comes out in February.” That is consideration for their February new-releases coverage, not a commitment to review it.
9 October 2026 / Second edition
The Cognitive Crisis in AI-Augmented Work
My previous book is out in a new second edition. Available now in paperback and on Kindle - details with the author ↑
11 / Questions
Asked and
answered.
Everything a reader asks before picking up this book. Missing something? Email [email protected].
What is it about, in one line?
What happens in the gap between evidence and judgement - and how to ask the missing question in time.
Who is it for?
Anyone whose work ends in a decision - managers, engineers, doctors, founders, students, teams. If a machine now drafts your analysis and summarises your evidence, it was written with you already in the room.
What is PRISM?
The framework the book teaches: five moves, run before any decision. See it in full ↑ or run a decision through it ↑.
How is it different from other books about thinking?
Many books explain how thinking errs. This one gives you a single route you can actually run, cases from the public record instead of anecdotes, and protocols - small deliberate practices - at the end of every chapter, because understanding a failure is not enough on its own.
Is it a self-help book?
No. The opening case is an oil rig, not an affirmation.
Will this book stop me making bad decisions?
No, and no honest book can. It gives you a method to run before you decide. The promise in the book’s own words ↑
Can I read a sample first?
Yes. The free sample has the cover, the preface and the first page of Chapter 1. It is in Downloads ▾, and on its own page.
How long is it, and how long does it take to read?
The current typeset edition runs to fifteen chapters and 458 pages. It has about 118,000 words of main text, not counting the endnotes and reference lists. At about 250 words per minute, that is about 8 hours of reading. The final print page count depends on the format, which is still to be announced.
Is this for me if I have never studied thinking?
Yes. Nothing here assumes training: the machinery of thinking is explained in plain words, and every chapter's sources are listed for you to check. The only requirement is a decision you care about.
Why should I read this book?
Because, as the preface puts it, "the most dangerous failure of the twenty-first century is not a failure of technology. It is a failure of thought: the quiet, trainable discipline by which a mind frames a problem well, reads the evidence honestly, then catches itself being wrong." What the book gives you is in The book; you can try its method on your own decision right now.
How is the book organised?
Three circles: the mind, the room, the machine. The chapter list ↑
What will I walk away able to do?
Five things, one for each PRISM move. See the five moves ↑
Are the cases real?
All of them - drawn from the public record: official commissions, hearing transcripts, court records, journalism and company accounts. The cases ↑ · the sources ↑
How well researched is it?
Every chapter's bibliography is open to read, and the counts of works and endnotes sit above them. Explore the chapter bibliographies behind the book ↑
Is PRISM scientifically proven?
It is a synthesis of tested parts, not a separately validated model - and the book says so openly. The parts come from published research; the route through them is his.
What does AI have to do with judgement?
A machine will now draft your analysis and sound sure of itself while it does - which makes the oldest problem in judgement more expensive, not less. The book was written for exactly that world: see The book ↑
Who is Zafar Alam?
Civil engineer and Chartered Construction Manager. The full bio is in the author section the full bio ↑
Why did a construction manager write a book about thinking?
He tells that story himself in The author ↑
Has he written anything else?
Yes - The Cognitive Crisis in AI-Augmented Work, second edition published October 2026. Details and its reader reviews ↑
When does the book come out?
Planned for 13 February 2027. Available to pre-order now: https://amzn.eu/d/0au4rUW3 - the facts ↑
How much will it cost?
The Kindle edition is available to pre-order now - planned for 13 February 2027, print to follow. The intention is to price it as low as possible, so more people can afford it - the aim is awareness, not profit.
How was the book made?
AI assisted with gathering, testing arguments, facts and writing. The author checked the work; the reading, judgement and decisions stayed his.
How do I follow the book's progress?
Follow the author on Instagram (@whatrwemissing) or the book on X (@WhatAreWMissing), or check the news below - it only carries dated, verifiable updates.
Can I share quotes from the book?
The downloads section has free quote cards, in the book's own design, made for posting on your own channels. That is what they are for.
I'm a reviewer or journalist - how do I get in touch?
Email [email protected]. Endorsements are published with the reviewer's consent, exactly as sent.
Is it useful for teams, not just individuals?
Deliberately so. Five of the fifteen chapters, 8 to 12, are about the room itself - why a table of smart people can sign off on a wrong call, and what decides whether doubt gets spoken out loud.
How does it compare to Thinking, Fast and Slow?
Kahneman's book is the landmark account of why the mind errs - the two systems, the biases, the decades of evidence. What Are We Missing? is about what to do in the minutes before your own decision hardens. One route to run rather than a catalogue to admire - and the room and the machine are in it too.
How is it different from The Art of Thinking Clearly?
Rolf Dobelli's book is a field guide: ninety-nine short chapters, one thinking error each. This book is the opposite shape - a single framework, PRISM, that you run before any decision, with protocols at the end of every chapter that turn the moves into habit.
What about Noise?
Noise, by Kahneman, Sibony and Sunstein, is about unwanted variability - why the same question gets different answers from different judges - and its remedy, decision hygiene, is aimed mainly at organisations. What Are We Missing? works one step earlier: whether the question being answered is the right one at all, for a person, a room, or a machine.
And Superforecasting?
Tetlock and Gardner studied people who are measurably best at predicting events: they update often, think in probabilities, keep score. This book is about the decisions that never get scored - the ones you make once and cannot take back. Same family, different room.
If I read only one, why this one?
Read Kahneman to understand the mind. Read this when the decision is yours and the room has gone quiet. It was built for the world you actually decide in now - with AI already in it.
Where the book is now.
Review copies are out. Launch is planned.
28 Sep 2026Review copies out
13 Feb 2027Planned launch
The launch
Weekly thinking tips and launch updates.
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Watch one short
Articles
17 October 2026
The $10,000 repair that went out to bid
Zafar Alam examines the 1992 Chicago freight-tunnel flood and the repair proposal recorded in the chief bridge inspector's memo.
17 October 2026
The walkway change that doubled a connection load
Zafar Alam examines the Hyatt Regency walkway load path, review stamps and the capacity findings in the NBS investigation.
17 October 2026
What did you mean by a serious possibility?
Zafar Alam examines Sherman Kent's account of ambiguous probability words and the limits of putting numbers on uncertainty.
Still deciding?
Start with the five PRISM questions above. If a repeatable practice, source-checkable cases and a clear account of AI's role matter to you, follow the book to launch.
Follow the book ↗