CHK.1:4.1 - Recover the work and the consequential difference

Name the work result and the occasion at which an answer will matter. Identify the actual or prospective subjects: a physical set, a document edition, an import operation or the catalogue after it. Ask what was omitted, could plausibly be omitted, or remains difficult to notice. Include the encompassing use: why would this difference matter to the exercise, delivery or operation?

Use your own and others’ past omissions to propose questions, keeping the conditions that made each omission consequential. Look for patterns across incidents or records where a single account hides the connection. Ask what observation could challenge the favored explanation or desired answer. Prior mistakes suggest questions; they do not enumerate every possible failure. Place a revealing question early enough to avoid further work that its answer could make unnecessary.

Follow the actual production and use relations far enough to expose a consequential omission. Who or what produces this result, what enables that producer, and who uses the result? At a relevant link, distinguish the producer or user, descriptions of it, its way of working and its actual work. A missing intermediate service, tool or capable performer may deserve attention even when the final subject looks satisfactory. Stop following links when further detail cannot change the selected questions. If the prospective subject does not yet exist, ask about the available materials, descriptions or enabling results without treating a description as the existing subject.

Recover the descriptions used to judge the result and the assumptions connecting their described characteristics to that use. ME.3 helps construct criteria from the subject and situation. Use its account of criterion construction with the subject/description distinction in the Preface. When the criterion’s basis is unavailable, return that specific question to competent domain work.