C.43:4.2 - Build the account of the situation needed for the choice

Separate the actual situation from what the decision maker can know about it. Identify observations, their times, relevant past actions and the assumptions used to interpret them. An observation of an earlier state becomes useful for a present choice through an account of what could have changed since then.

Choose the representation by the decisions it must support. A point estimate can suffice when its remaining uncertainty cannot change the response. A set of compatible situations is useful when one action must remain acceptable across them. Probabilities are useful when the evidence and decision justify comparisons of expected consequences. A causal explanation, a production schedule and a physiological model retain different distinctions because different actions depend on them.

Recover what the retained information allows you to infer. If two possible situations require incompatible actions, a representation that treats them as identical is insufficient for that choice. The response can be to obtain a distinguishing observation, retain uncertainty explicitly, select an action acceptable in both, or change the requested outcome. More detailed modeling is only one possibility.

Check the information needed at the moment of action. Prediction can permit a justified action before a delayed measurement arrives, or compensate for some consequences of that delay. Retain the actual delay and the model assumptions that make this response possible. Preserve the effects of actual inputs and relevant history when they affect what the current observation means. Use C.30.LCA to recover an unclear control structure and C.29 to choose a suitable mathematical representation. Neither a mathematical vocabulary nor a detailed model supplies missing observations.