Skip to content
Anil Thapa
What would this work change?

A review from the exercise

The work has an output and not yet a decision

The starting point when question one is answered "I can name the deliverable, but not the choice it changes" or "I don't know yet".

Six questions about one decision from the reader's own work: what it would change, who makes the call, when evidence could still reach it, what evidence it rests on, what the next step displaces, and what is missing to take it. The first question answered with an open condition is where the result starts, and this review is one of the seven starting points.

Question 01 · The choice

What would someone do differently if this work succeeded?

  1. In placeI can name the choice between actions it would change.
  2. Starts hereI can name the deliverable. Which choice it changes is not clear.
  3. Starts hereI don't know yet.

Where a part below depends on the answer, each passage opens with its answer in bold. Find yours.

What the answer establishes

I can name the deliverable. Which choice it changes is not clear. You can name what will be delivered. Which action would change on its result is not yet clear, so the work has an output and not yet a decision. That is a question to settle before the work grows, not a defect in the work.

I don't know yet. Whether this work changes any choice is not yet known. That is the first thing to find out, because every later question here refers to the choice, and so does every estimate of what the work is worth.

The question to ask next

Ask the person who asked for the work: if this came back the other way, what would you do differently? If they can answer, that is the decision, in their words. If the answer is that they would still want to see it, the work is a report. A report can be worth doing; it is sized and scheduled differently from evidence a choice is waiting on.

The small step

Before the work goes further, write the decision as one sentence in the requester's words: who chooses, between what, and by when. Take it back to them for a yes or a correction. A sentence they correct is more useful than one you guessed right, because the correction is the part you did not know.

What it costs

A conversation before the work rather than after it, and a day or two of delay that the requester carries. The conversation may find that the work has no decision behind it, which the requester may not welcome and which you are then the one to say. The alternative is building the output and finding out at the end, at the full price.

What changes the advice

If the requester names a decision but not who makes it, the open question has moved to the owner, and the review for question two is the one to read. If they name a decision that has already been made, it has moved to timing, and the review for question three.

Answer the six questions

Read next

Essay

Recommendations that go nowhere

A finding tells someone what is true. A recommendation names the decision they own, in their words, and that is the whole difference between the two.

Essay

How to build actionable dashboards

Start from the decision, not the data: what it informs, who makes it, and what they do differently depending on what they see.

The other exercise here runs the same way on a fictional quarter: four demands, capacity for two, and what each pair cost. Tradeoffs