DTM.1:4 - Solution
Name what continues, recover what supports it, compare the consequences, then characterize the relation.
DTM.1:4.1 - Identify the variant and its continuation
Choose the unit whose continuation is in question. For a working practice, distinguish the method used, a description of it, its competent execution and the participants capable of teaching it. For a device or program, distinguish installed instances from the design and its revisions.
State the criterion by which a later occurrence counts as continuation or a changed variant. A short operational distinction may suffice: “a report prepared with this procedure and checked against independent measurements,” rather than “the same culture.” Where learning changes the method, retain that change for DTM.2.
Then identify the participants and means that enable this continuation: an executor, a provider, an organization allocating time, a communication channel, or an archive. These examples are different relations, not a compulsory list of parts.
DTM.1:4.2 - Recover the enabling relation
Ask what contribution would be absent if the supporting participant or resource were unavailable. Describe the resulting loss and whether another available contribution could replace it. Distinguish dependence on one supplier from dependence on the kind of contribution.
For example, the practice may need an external solver, without needing this particular solver. Alternatively, its records may be readable only by the present service. These relations call for different continuations: obtaining a substitute, making the representation portable, changing the practice, or accepting the dependence for the intended work.
Use a model or a safe bounded comparison when withdrawal would disrupt real work. An unperformed counterfactual remains a hypothesis. Loss under withdrawal establishes dependence; it does not yet establish harm during supported use.
DTM.1:4.3 - Compare results for the affected participants
Recover whose result matters, for which work and over what horizon. A.6.P.RI helps repair expressions such as “our benefit,” “the system is safe” or “they are dependent.”
Choose a feasible comparison: continuing the present arrangement, using an available alternative, or changing one contribution. For each materially affected participant, retain useful output, required expenditure, exposure to failure and capacity for later work where those differences change the choice. The relevant domain methods define and measure these quantities.
A difference is meaningful only against that comparison. If a provider bears a conversion cost in one arrangement and the customer bears it in another, keep both allocations visible. Do not place the cost in an unnamed total and then attribute the resulting advantage to each participant.
When consequences remain unknown, identify the missing relation that changes the conclusion. It may be sufficient to proceed under two conditional accounts. A new investigation is useful only if its result could improve the receiving decision enough to warrant its cost.
DTM.1:4.4 - Relate continuation to consequences
Now compare the variant’s continuation with the effects just recovered.
| Observed or modeled relation | Working characterization and consequence |
|---|---|
| Continuation depends on another contribution, while effects are unresolved | Dependence is established; usefulness and harm remain open. |
| Participants obtain useful contributions from the arrangement under the stated comparison | Cooperation is supported for those participants and conditions. Inspect any relevant omitted recipient before generalizing. |
| A variant or participant gains continuation through another’s resources while impairing that other’s stated work | Parasitic use is a candidate explanation of this relation. Identify the causal extraction or diversion; disadvantage alone does not establish it. |
| Effects change with access, scale, time or allocation of costs | Retain a conditional relation; model the condition that changes its character. |
These are not permanent types of people or organizations. Several relations may coexist: cooperation between two participants can impose harm on a third. The description also does not settle what intervention is legitimate; the applicable agreements, rights and decision methods do that work.
The minimal output can be one sentence: “This procedure depends on the shared service, improves current output while the service is available, and leaves the team without a tested substitute.” That is already enough to consider a substitute or a different assurance arrangement without calling either participant a parasite.
DTM.1:4.5 - Choose the next modeling question
Use DTM.2 when the uncertainty concerns adoption or further transmission; DTM.3 when participants change through use and thereby change transmission. Use DTM.5 for a conflict between within-group and between-group change, and DTM.7 only when a shared mechanism may be serving a different result.
If the comparison removes the alleged harm, stop the harmful-variant branch. If only the choice among already understood arrangements remains, return to the existing selection and improvement methods. A new dynamic model is not required to preserve an already sufficient conclusion.