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Anil Thapa
What would this work change?

A review from the exercise

Every condition is in place. Test one.

The result when every answer names a condition that is in place.

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.

  1. 01 · The choiceI can name the choice between actions it would change.
  2. 02 · The ownerI make it, within a boundary that has been agreed.I recommend to a named owner who makes it.
  3. 03 · The timingBefore a known decision that has not been made yet.At a known recurring review.
  4. 04 · The evidenceThe comparison is agreed, and the evidence has the checks it needs.
  5. 05 · The tradeThe displaced work is named, and the owner who carries the delay has agreed.
  6. 06 · The supportNothing I can identify: someone can act, and a review point is agreed.

What the answers establish

Every answer names a condition in place: a choice the work would change, an owner who can make it, a window in which evidence can still reach it, evidence with the checks it needs, a trade someone has agreed to, and nothing missing for the next step. This exercise cannot confirm any of that. What it can do is point at the one test that would.

The question to ask next

Ask the owner for two things: when do you want the recommendation, and what would you need to see to choose the other way? If both answers come easily, the conditions you named are real. If either stalls, one of your six answers was generous, and you have just found which.

The small step

Take one bounded recommendation to the owner before the window closes: the choice, an alternative you would accept, and the fact that would change your mind. Record what was decided and why. A few of those records are the most honest evidence of judgment anyone has, and they are what a larger decision gets handed on.

What it costs

Exposure. A recommendation with a condition can be shown to be wrong on terms agreed in advance, and a declined one has to be counted as the format working. The owner may choose the alternative. What is spent is the safety of a finding with caveats, which is also most of why findings go nowhere.

What changes the advice

If the recommendation gets no decision and no reason, one of the six conditions was not what it looked like, and the exercise cannot tell you which. The owner's answer to the question above usually can. Go back to questions one to three first; the later ones only matter once those hold.

Answer the six questions

Read next

Essay

Recommendations that go nowhere

Decision, alternative, condition: the shape, the rewrite, and why "declined with a reason" counts as the format working.

Case study

Data in the boardroom

Lead with the recommendation, give uncertainty as a range with consequences attached, and keep a record of the calls you made.

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