C.40.OP:1 - Problem Frame

Use this when useful opportunities would otherwise disappear because they are not today’s strongest candidate, depend on a later condition, or require a preliminary step whose immediate result is modest. The working question is “what is worth keeping available, for which later use, and at what cost?”

For an opportunity portfolio, name the later option that retention is meant to preserve, together with its contribution, conditions, lineage and next reconsideration. The first useful result can be two retained alternatives with one reason and reopen condition each; a large portfolio system is unnecessary. When no later opportunity can yet be named, the C.40 return in :4.2 handles retaining material for a worthwhile further inquiry.

This pattern governs opportunity retention and path construction, including development opportunities. A portfolio here is the maintained set of opportunity descriptions and their relevant relations. It is not a funding allocation, selected development programme, recommendation, or permission to realize every member. A stepping stone is a candidate step retained for what it may enable later, not necessarily for being best now.

Ordinary non-use boundary. Do not create a portfolio when one current question needs only a direct qualification or choice and there is no useful later retention. Reuse an adequate set with its current conditions. Enter directly from existing opportunities; no complete opportunity-construction sequence is required. When an authorized programme and its implementation are already the subject, use the owning programme or work practice. If an actual search archive, front, or live-pool treatment is the question, use C.18 or C.19 at the specific return in :4.5.