Accelerate - Allan MacDonald: Decision Making in Sport

About this episode

Allan MacDonald discusses decision-making in high-performance environments and the importance of judgmental forecasting.

Episode 220: In this episode of Accelerate Podcast, host Nicola Graham is joined by Allan MacDonald — a decision-making specialist who has spent 15 years in elite sport before transitioning into government, and who holds a professional doctorate in judgmental forecasting and decision-making. Allan's career has taken him across high-performance sport, public sector strategy, and academic research — giving him a rare cross-domain perspective on how decisions actually get made under pressure. His doctoral work focuses on the science of forecasting and human judgement, exploring why even experienced professionals fall short when it matters most. ㅤ At the centre of the conversation is a question every high-performance environment faces: how do we make better decisions — not just with better data, but with better thinking? Allan unpacks the gap between having information and knowing how to weigh it, and why expertise alone is no defence against the biases that quietly shape our choices. ㅤ The discussion also explores how the principles of judgmental forecasting and calibrated confidence translate beyond sport — into business, strategy, and any environment where decisions are made in…

People in this episode

Host: Nicola Graham

Guest: Allan MacDonald

Topics covered

• Decision Making in High-Performance Environments
• Confidence and Calibration
• Team Set-Ups and How They Shape Judgement
• Forecasting and Handling Uncertainty
• The Crossover to Business and Strategy

Keywords

• decision making
• high-performance sport
• judgmental forecasting
• human judgement
• biases
• confidence
• uncertainty
• business strategy

Sponsors

Gamepla

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