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DeeCee.ai - User Guide

Welcome to DeeCee.ai! This guide will help you make better decisions using AI-powered frameworks.

Table of Contents

  1. Getting Started
  2. Uploading Documents
  3. Creating Decisions
  4. Understanding Decision Frameworks
  5. Working with AI-Generated Analysis
  6. Managing Your Account
  7. Free Trial Limits
  8. Tips for Best Results

Getting Started

Sign Up

  1. Visit the DeeCee.ai homepage
  2. Click "Sign Up" or "Start Free Trial"
  3. Create an account using:
    • Email and password
    • Google account
    • Other supported providers

Your Dashboard

After signing in, you'll see your dashboard with:

  • Documents uploaded (max 25 in free trial)
  • Storage used (max 100MB in free trial)
  • Decisions created (max 10 per month in free trial)
  • AI tokens used (max 100K per month in free trial)

Uploading Documents

Why Upload Documents?

Documents provide context for your decisions. The AI can search through your uploaded files to find relevant information and incorporate it into your decision analysis.

Supported File Types

  • PDF (.pdf)
  • Word Documents (.docx)
  • PowerPoint (.pptx)
  • Text Files (.txt)
  • Images (.jpg, .png) - Text will be extracted via OCR

How to Upload

  1. Go to Knowledge in the sidebar
  2. Click Upload Documents or drag files into the upload zone
  3. Select one or more files (max 64MB each)
  4. Wait for processing to complete

What Happens After Upload?

  1. Text Extraction - Content is extracted from your files
  2. Image Analysis - Any images are analyzed using AI vision
  3. Embedding Generation - Content is converted to searchable vectors
  4. Ready for Use - Documents appear in your knowledge base

Managing Documents

  • Preview - Click the eye icon to view extracted text
  • Download - Download the original file
  • Reprocess - Re-extract text if processing failed
  • Delete - Remove document (frees up storage)

Note: You can reprocess a document up to 3 times per hour.

Creating Decisions

Step 1: Start a New Decision

  1. Click Decisions in the sidebar
  2. Click New Decision
  3. Describe your decision in the context box

Step 2: AI Complexity Assessment

The AI will analyze your decision and suggest:

  • Complexity Level (Simple, Moderate, Complex, Strategic)
  • Recommended Framework (SPADE, DACI, or Helix)
  • Decision Title (you can edit this)

Step 3: Choose Generation Mode

Auto Mode (Recommended)

  • AI generates all framework steps automatically
  • Faster and more consistent
  • Best for most decisions

Guided Mode

  • Generate one step at a time
  • Review and edit between steps
  • More control, takes longer

Step 4: Optional Features

Web Search

  • Enable to have AI search the web for additional context
  • Useful for decisions requiring current information
  • Uses more AI tokens

Step 5: Review Your Decision

After generation completes:

  • Read through all framework steps
  • Edit any section by clicking the edit icon
  • Export to Markdown or generate an Executive Summary
  • Mark as complete when done

Understanding Decision Frameworks

SPADE Framework (5 Steps)

Best for: Strategic, complex decisions

  1. Setting - Context, constraints, and objectives
  2. People - Stakeholders and decision-makers
  3. Alternatives - Options and trade-offs
  4. Decide - Recommendation and rationale
  5. Explain - Communication plan

DACI Framework (4 Steps)

Best for: Organizational decisions with clear roles

  1. Driver - Who drives the decision process
  2. Approver - Who has final approval
  3. Contributors - Who provides input
  4. Informed - Who needs to know

Helix Framework (3 Steps)

Best for: Moderate complexity decisions

  1. Strategy & Alternatives - Combined setting and people
  2. Recommendation & Ownership - Alternatives with trade-offs
  3. Execution - Decision and plan

Working with AI-Generated Analysis

Reading Framework Steps

Each step contains:

  • Title - What this step covers
  • AI Analysis - Generated content with markdown formatting
  • Referenced Documents - Sources used from your knowledge base
  • Token Usage - AI costs for this step

Editing Steps

  1. Click the Edit icon on any step
  2. Modify the content (supports rich text)
  3. Click Save
  4. Optionally, Regenerate subsequent steps to incorporate your edits

Referenced Documents

If the AI used your uploaded documents:

  • Document names appear below each step
  • Relevance score shows how relevant the content was
  • Click document names to preview the full content

Understanding Costs

  • Input Tokens - Context sent to AI
  • Output Tokens - AI-generated text
  • Total Cost - Estimated cost in USD
  • Free trial includes 100K tokens/month (≈ 20-30 decisions)

Managing Your Account

Settings Page

Access via Settings in the sidebar:

Account Information

  • View your email and name
  • Managed through your authentication provider

Usage & Limits

  • See current usage vs. limits
  • Track monthly token consumption
  • Monitor storage and document count

Appearance

  • Toggle between Light, Dark, and System theme
  • Theme preference is saved

Decision Management

Filter Decisions

  • All, Draft, In Progress, Completed

Actions

  • View decision workspace
  • Continue editing
  • Delete old decisions

Document Management

Sort & Filter

  • By upload date
  • By processing status (Pending, Processing, Completed, Failed)

Actions

  • Preview extracted text
  • Download original file
  • Reprocess if needed
  • Delete to free up space

Free Trial Limits

Your free trial includes:

Resource Limit What It Means
Documents 25 Max files you can have uploaded
Storage 100 MB Total size of all uploaded files
AI Tokens 100K/month Resets on the 1st of each month
Decisions 10/month Max decisions per month, resets monthly

What Happens When You Hit a Limit?

Documents (25)

  • Can't upload more until you delete some
  • Delete old/unused documents to free slots

Storage (100 MB)

  • Can't upload more files
  • Delete large files to free space
  • Compress files before uploading

Decisions (10/month)

  • Can't create new decisions until next month
  • Resets automatically on the 1st of each month
  • Consider upgrading to Pro for unlimited decisions

AI Tokens (100K/month)

  • Can't generate new decision steps
  • Wait until next month (resets automatically)
  • Consider upgrading to paid plan

Rate Limits

  • Decision creation: 20 per hour
  • Complexity assessments: 10 per minute
  • Document reprocessing: 3 per hour per document
  • Search queries: 60 per minute

Tips for Best Results

Writing Effective Decision Context

Better context leads to better AI analysis. Include these 5 essential elements:

The 5 Essential Elements:

  1. Clear Problem Statement: What exactly needs to be decided?
  2. Current Situation: Where are we now and why does this matter?
  3. Constraints: What limitations exist (budget, time, resources, regulations)?
  4. Stakeholders: Who is involved, affected, or needs to decide?
  5. Success Criteria: How will we know if this was the right decision?

Additional Power Elements:

  • Alternatives being considered
  • Urgency and timeline
  • Impact if we decide wrong
  • Related decisions or past attempts

The Three Levels of Context Quality

❌ Poor Context (Avoid)

Too vague, no details, impossible for AI to provide useful guidance:

Should we use React or Vue?

✓ Good Context (Minimum)

Includes basic problem, constraints, and stakeholders:

Should we use React or Vue for our new web application?

Our team has 3 frontend developers with varying experience.
We need to launch in 6 months. Budget: $50K for development.

✓✓ Best Context (Ideal)

Comprehensive, includes all 5 essential elements plus alternatives and success criteria:

Should we use React or Vue.js for our customer portal rewrite,
launching Q2 2026?

CURRENT SITUATION:
- Existing jQuery portal (5 years old), 10,000 DAU, 60% mobile
- Customer feedback: 3.2/5 rating
- Technical debt: 18 critical vulnerabilities, poor mobile UX

WHY NOW:
- Competitor launched modern portal, losing 2 customers/week
- Major client (30% revenue) threatened to churn over poor UX
- Security audit flagged portal as "high risk"

STAKEHOLDERS:
- Decision Owner: VP Engineering (Sarah Chen)
- Approver: CTO (Mike Rodriguez)
- Contributors: 3 frontend devs, DevOps, UX designer, Security Lead
- Informed: Product team, Customer Success, Sales

TEAM CAPABILITIES:
- Senior Dev: 5 years React, 0 Vue, strong TypeScript
- Junior Dev 1: 1 year React, bootcamp graduate
- Junior Dev 2: Fresh hire, no framework experience
- No budget for external consultants

CONSTRAINTS:
- Timeline: MUST launch by June 1, 2026 (6 months, non-negotiable)
- Budget: $50K one-time dev + $5K/month infrastructure
- Technical: Must integrate with Django REST API, existing PostgreSQL
- Browser support: Chrome/Safari/Firefox + IE11 (15% of users)
- Performance: Page load under 2 seconds on 3G
- Accessibility: WCAG 2.1 AA compliance required

ALTERNATIVES:
1. React: Industry standard, huge ecosystem, team has experience
2. Vue.js: Easier learning curve, good documentation, smaller bundle
3. Angular: Rejected (too heavyweight, no team experience)

SUCCESS CRITERIA:
- Launch on time, <2s load time, zero critical security issues
- Retain at-risk major client, improve rating to 4.5+/5
- Junior devs productive within 3 weeks
- Mobile UX score >85/100, support tickets decrease 30%

RISKS IF WRONG:
- Miss deadline → lose major client ($400K/year)
- Team can't learn fast enough → poor code quality
- Performance issues → user churn accelerates

Real-World Examples by Decision Type

Example 1: Hiring Decision

Should we hire 2 senior engineers or 4 junior engineers for our
mobile team?

CURRENT SITUATION:
- Mobile team: 3 mid-level engineers struggling with Q4 roadmap
- iOS: 4.2/5 rating (50K DAU), Android: 3.8/5 (30K DAU)
- Backlog: 23 high-priority features, 89 bugs (12 critical)

WHY NOW:
- Q4 launch critical for $2M revenue target
- Competition shipped features we're missing
- Team working 60+ hours (burnout risk)

STAKEHOLDERS:
- Driver: Head of Engineering (Alex Kim)
- Approver: COO (Jennifer Liu) - controls hiring budget
- Contributors: Mobile team leads, Finance, Recruiter

CONSTRAINTS:
- Budget: $400K total comp for year 1
- Timeline: Need team productive by Oct 1 (10 weeks)
- Market: Seniors take 8-12 weeks to hire, juniors 3-4 weeks

ALTERNATIVES:
1. 2 Senior Engineers ($200K each)
   - Pros: Immediate impact, mentors, architectural decisions
   - Cons: Longer hire time, higher cost, flight risk

2. 4 Junior Engineers ($100K each)
   - Pros: Faster hire, eager to learn, lower cost
   - Cons: Need mentoring, slower ramp-up, may make mistakes

3. 1 Senior + 2 Junior ($150K)
   - Pros: Balance of experience and capacity
   - Cons: Still challenging to hit Q4 goals

SUCCESS CRITERIA:
- Q4 launch ships on time (Nov 15)
- App ratings improve to 4.5+ within 6 months
- Team morale improves (quarterly survey)
- 12-month retention rate >80%
- Feature velocity increases 2x by month 6

Example 2: Market Expansion Decision

Should we expand our B2B SaaS product to the European market in 2026?

CURRENT SITUATION:
- Product: Project management SaaS, $5M ARR, 500 customers (US only)
- Growth: 20% MoM for 8 months, product-market fit achieved
- Team: 25 people, 18 months runway at $200K/month burn
- Inbound: 50+ European companies requested access

WHY NOW:
- 2 European competitors launched similar products Q1 2025
- Series A investors want TAM expansion before Series B
- US market showing early saturation in our ICP

STAKEHOLDERS:
- Decision Owner: CEO (Rachel Martinez)
- Approver: Board of Directors (quarterly meetings)
- Contributors: VP Engineering, VP Sales, VP CS, CFO, Legal

CONSTRAINTS:
- Budget: $500K one-time + $100K/month (20% of runway)
- Timeline: Must launch Q3 2026 (board commitment)
- Technical: EU data residency required (GDPR)
- Team: Can't hire >5 people without affecting US growth

ALTERNATIVES:
1. Full EU Expansion: Legal entity, EU data centers, local team
   - Investment: $500K + $100K/mo, 9-12 months to launch

2. Soft Launch (UK Only): Minimal setup, GDPR compliance
   - Investment: $200K + $40K/mo, 4-6 months

3. Partner/Reseller: Find European partner to resell
   - Investment: $100K, 6-8 months

4. Wait Until 2027: Focus on US growth, revisit later
   - Investment: $0, but risk losing first-mover advantage

FINANCIAL MODEL:
- EU TAM: $500M (3x US market)
- Target: 50 customers Year 1 ($500K ARR), 200 Year 2 ($2M ARR)
- Break-even: Month 18, Payback: 24 months

SUCCESS CRITERIA:
- Launch Q3 2026, 10 paying customers in 90 days
- $500K ARR from Europe EOY 2026, <5% churn
- NPS >40, zero GDPR violations
- No negative impact to US growth rate

Example 3: Process/Policy Decision

Should we implement mandatory code review requiring 2 approvals?

CURRENT SITUATION:
- 12 developers (4 senior, 8 junior)
- Optional reviews: 60% of PRs get no review
- 3 production outages last quarter due to unreviewed code
- Tech debt growing, 20 deploys/day

WHY NOW:
- Last outage cost $50K in SLA credits
- Junior devs unsure what "good code" looks like
- Preparing for SOC2 audit (need change management docs)

STAKEHOLDERS:
- Driver: VP Engineering, Approver: CTO
- Contributors: All 12 devs, DevOps, QA Lead
- Informed: Product team (may affect velocity)

CONSTRAINTS:
- Can't slow deploy velocity significantly
- Senior devs at capacity for reviews
- No budget for new tools
- Remote team across 3 time zones

ALTERNATIVES:
1. Mandatory 2 Approvals: Highest quality, may slow 30-40%
2. Mandatory 1 Approval: Balance of quality and speed
3. Risk-Based Reviews: High risk (auth) = 2, medium = 1, low = optional

SUCCESS CRITERIA:
- Zero outages from code quality in 3 months
- PR review <4 hours, deploy velocity >15/day
- Junior onboarding reduces to 4 weeks
- Pass SOC2 audit requirements

Quality Checklist

Before assessing your decision, verify you have:

✅ Must Have:

  • Clear decision statement (what exactly?)
  • Current situation (why does this matter?)
  • Decision maker identified (who decides?)
  • Timeline or urgency (when?)
  • Key constraints (budget, time, resources)

✅ Should Have:

  • Stakeholders listed with roles (driver, approver, contributors)
  • Budget or resource constraints specified
  • Alternatives being considered (at least 2-3 options)
  • Success criteria defined (how to measure if it worked)
  • Risks if we get it wrong

✅ Nice to Have:

  • Past related decisions or learnings
  • Competitive context or market dynamics
  • Quantitative data (metrics, costs, timelines)
  • Implementation plan outline

Red Flags to Avoid

❌ Too Vague:

  • "Should we grow faster?" (What does "grow" mean? How? Where?)
  • "Should we improve quality?" (Which quality? By how much?)

❌ Missing Constraints:

  • "Should we build X?" (What's the budget? Timeline? Who builds it?)

❌ No Stakeholders:

  • "Should we change pricing?" (Who approves? Who's affected?)

❌ No Alternatives:

  • Only describing one option (always consider multiple paths)

❌ No Success Criteria:

  • "Should we do X?" (How will you know if it worked?)

Framework-Specific Tips

For SPADE Decisions (Strategic):

  • Focus on Setting: Provide comprehensive context and background
  • Detail People: List all stakeholders and their influence levels
  • Explore Alternatives: Present 3-5 realistic options with trade-offs
  • Use Decide section: Capture recommendation with clear rationale
  • Plan Explain phase: How will you communicate this decision?

For DACI Decisions (Operational):

  • Clearly identify Driver (who owns execution)
  • Name the Approver (who has final authority)
  • List Contributors (who provides input)
  • Specify Informed parties (who needs to know)
  • Include timeline for each role's involvement

For Helix Decisions (Complex):

  • Combine strategic context with role clarity
  • Start with Setting + Alternatives
  • Add DACI roles in middle
  • End with decision rationale + communication plan

Uploading Relevant Documents

What to Upload

  • ✅ Product requirements
  • ✅ Financial projections
  • ✅ Market research
  • ✅ Team capacity docs
  • ✅ Previous decision records

What NOT to Upload

  • ❌ Irrelevant files
  • ❌ Duplicate content
  • ❌ Overly large files (compress if possible)

Using Web Search Effectively

Enable web search when:

  • Decision requires current market data
  • Need industry best practices
  • Looking for vendor comparisons
  • Want external validation

Skip web search when:

  • All context is in your documents
  • Making internal company decisions
  • Trying to save tokens
  • Speed is important

Getting Better AI Analysis

Provide Context

  • Upload relevant background documents
  • Be specific in your decision description
  • Include constraints and objectives

Review and Edit

  • AI suggestions are starting points
  • Edit steps to match your context
  • Regenerate subsequent steps after edits

Iterate

  • Create multiple decision versions
  • Try different frameworks
  • Compare approaches

Common Questions

Q: How do I delete my account? A: Contact support. We'll delete all your data within 30 days.

Q: Are my documents secure? A: Yes. Documents are private to your account and encrypted in transit and at rest.

Q: Can I share decisions with my team? A: Not in the free trial. Upgrade to the team plan for collaboration features.

Q: What happens to my data after the trial? A: Your data is preserved. You can export decisions to Markdown anytime.

Q: Can I upgrade mid-trial? A: Yes! Upgrade anytime to get unlimited resources and team features.

Q: Do tokens reset automatically? A: Yes, on the 1st of each month your token usage resets to 0.

Need Help?

Last Updated: 2025-01-13 Version: 1.1