LDR.5:1 - Problem frame

Use this when people are connected by a concern, opportunity or changing situation but cannot yet undertake a sufficiently understood course together. There may be no agreed group, ready proposal or recognized person to lead. Alternatively, an established group may keep performing while its members no longer understand or support the direction. The difficulty is to develop joint agency without assuming that the initiator already knows everybody’s purpose or possesses their authority.

Begin with a consequential experience or possibility and the people needed to examine it. Construct the problem and a worthwhile direction with them, obtain the subject reasoning it requires, and relate that direction to what they can choose and undertake. The first useful result can be a bounded joint inquiry, a supported course of action, separate continuations or an explicit reason why cooperation cannot yet begin.

A clear, justified direction with willing, capable participants needs no new direction-setting exercise. Use LDR.1 for missing help, LDR.2 for incompatible terms and LDR.4 for a proposal already needing preparation through first use. A binding urgent assignment can require action before a broad conversation is possible; use its actual authority and qualified operating method, preserving the specific questions that can affect the work.