C.40.OD:4.6 - Compare alternatives that remain whole

A useful alternative specifies a possible change and enough of its means, costs and receiving use to judge whether it can work. C.40.DC and C.40.JF supply direction/support construction and joint qualification; C.40.CU supplies the development of a useful reproducible whole. Reuse an adequate answer and develop its missing connections.

Several routes can be live together:

• A usable Method exists. Obtain its result, use it, adapt it or develop the capability to perform it, according to the sought result. A course is not required when a qualified provider is the sufficient alternative.
• The Method exists but is not feasible locally. Change access, support, allocation or the Method’s contextual realization. If that exposes a poor direction, return to direction construction.
• The proposed way is underdeveloped. Use C.39 and C.40.CD/CU to construct and try it. Do not sell established provision of a result that the proposed way cannot yet supply.
• A consequential knowledge claim is unresolved. Use the applicable research practice. Independent research can also be worthwhile without an immediate product customer; give it its own result, conditions and resources.
• The participant can perform the work only with continuing help. Compare maintained support with a learning transition and a different division of work. Neither dependence nor independence is universally superior.
• The current arrangement produces the result but blocks further development. Compare changes to problem formulation, authority, learning opportunity and support, not merely faster execution of the same routine.

These branches can rejoin or reopen one another. They are not stages that every undertaking must complete in order. A fully formed local question can enter near its receiving use; a failed trial can return to the underlying purpose rather than repeat an unchanged solution.