E.22:11.1 - Choosing the lightest sufficient question construction
Practice question. How should a requester obtain an evaluation question that will support the recipient’s actual next use, without adding another description when direct evaluation already suffices? The selected line is conditional: retain an adequate direct question; otherwise recover its missing purpose, object, criterion, grounds or use. Express exact E.22 bindings when they are needed to preserve that question across evaluators and consuming uses.
Two serious alternatives already provide purpose-first construction. Basili et al., Linking Software Development and Business Strategy Through Measurement (2010), especially “Background” and “GQM+Strategies”, links goals, derived measurement questions and interpretation to context and assumptions. It is a historical method still relevant to this comparison; its organizational alignment model is useful when that larger linkage is the question. Kidder et al., CDC Program Evaluation Framework, 2024, Steps 3–5, develops evaluation purpose, intended users and use, questions, design, credible evidence and supported conclusions. It expressly accommodates available resources and revision when needed evidence is infeasible. Their software-organization and program-evaluation settings supply no FPF characteristic values.
Comparison on the same receiving question. Keep the complete M1, reader, studio use, available premises and E.21 criteria from section 5 fixed. The following is a worked adaptation of the methods to that question, not a measurement of practitioner time or error rates.
| Adequate approach | Execution on this case | Sufficient result and burden |
|---|---|---|
| Direct E.21 evaluation of the filled request | The evaluator receives M1, the studio use, nineteen-coordinate floor, expected grounds and complete result form; evaluation starts immediately. | It answers the stated quality question. A separate E.22 frame supplies no additional judgement and adds a description to maintain. Retain this direct execution. |
| Goal–question–measurement construction using the GQM contribution | Starting with “review the studio method”, distinguish the goal of obtaining usable development guidance from the goal of qualifying a recording. Derive questions about that guidance and connect the chosen E.21 observations to the consuming decision. | It can construct the same sufficient question. The work is clarification, selection and interpretation; a full organizational goal/strategy model is warranted only when organizational alignment is also required. |
| Purpose-and-use construction using the CDC contribution | Identify the studio practitioner as the user, the decision about using M1 as the purpose, and the complete pattern as the object. Choose an attainable examination of its guidance and premises, then require conclusions supported by those grounds. | It can also construct the same sufficient question. Use its program-design, engagement and data-collection work when the receiving evaluation requires those contributions; they are not prerequisites of this one pattern-quality question. |
| E.22 construction and, where needed, exact declaration | Resolve the same ambiguity in section 4.0. Keep the question about M1 separate from the conditional preparation, the resulting evaluation and a later recording decision. Bind the declared criterion, scope, expected grounds and return form through sections 4.1–4.3 when those links must be exchanged precisely. | The ordinary request can be the same one. Exact bindings make a changed object, criterion or consuming use inspectable, at the cost of constituting and maintaining those references. They do not supply another evaluation result. |
Choice and accepted trade-off. Adopt the purpose-to-question and use-to-evidence direction shared by the alternatives; adapt it to the FPF object, criterion and result distinctions. Sections 1 and 4.0 put that construction before schemas, section 4.3 retains the direct-evaluation exit and section 5 supplies the filled request and its changed-use boundary. The local addition is an explicit account of those bindings, useful when exchanging a question otherwise risks evaluating another object or carrying a result beyond its scope. Pay its description and maintenance cost only for that needed precision. When an adequate direct request or the rival’s question already preserves the same distinctions, reuse it. Neither a newer explanation nor the presence of a frame establishes better detection, lower cost or a reason to replace a sufficient evaluation.
The comparison selects a bounded FPF adaptation, not a ranking of whole GQM, CDC or FPF frameworks. Reopen when a competing construction preserves the needed question at lower total burden, when an intended reader cannot recover the first request, when a changed source or use defeats these transfers, or when exact binding introduces more maintenance than its receiving use warrants.