ME.18:4 - Solution
Organize evidence around decision-changing claims, keep evidence forms distinct, resolve contradiction by scope, and select further checks only where their attainable result warrants the burden. Return scoped accounts or a lower result when the receiving decision has an adequate basis.
ME.18:4.1 - Pattern-Use Unfolding
- Name the receiving decision and unresolved claims. Include only intended result, entry conditions, reusable operations or invariants, cues and decisions, participants and capabilities, information and artifacts, support, variation, recovery, and stop claims that can change the decision.
- Build the claim-to-evidence matrix. For each claim, state what observation could support, contradict, split, or lower it and why the evidence form can distinguish those outcomes for that claim.
- Sample for decision-relevant variation. Select cases that differ in success or failure, routine or exceptional conditions, performer, setting, and tool or provider. Add a disconfirming case when the emerging account explains only the convenient sample. Use no universal participant count.
- Keep evidence forms distinct. Use occurrence observation/artifacts for overt actions and results; CDM for recalled critical-incident cognition; event-log analysis for recorded recurrence and deviation. Select contextual or protocol evidence only for a named gap and risk.
- Keep occurrence and candidate layers separate. Record each Work occurrence before abstracting an account. Preserve missing fields, observer effects, recall limits, tool coverage, and source access.
- Resolve contradiction by scope, not vote. Compare performer, setting, outcome, and evidence form. Correct a supported error; otherwise split variants, narrow applicability, retain rivals, or lower the claim.
- Choose whether a further check is needed. Identify the unresolved claim and the possible answers that would change the receiving use. Compare the attainable discrimination with evidence access, practitioner capacity, delay, and the whole acquisition burden. Select a held-out case when prediction or transfer to that case matters and can be examined usefully. State each serious account’s predictions about cues, decisions, variation, and result before inspecting it; record surprise and revision. Another claim may instead need a source comparison, a targeted elicitation, or no additional check because the existing evidence already supports the bounded decision. An unavailable check leaves its claim uncertain; it does not oblige an unproductive study or license a stronger claim.
- Stop or lower. Stop when the scoped accounts and explicit uncertainty dispositions support the receiving decision. Rivals may remain unresolved when distinguishing them would not change that decision. Narrow the use or defer it if a load-bearing uncertainty remains. Return no candidate account when the evidence supports only a Work description, local workaround, tool behavior, or unresolved grouping.
ME.18:4.2 - Record the Result
| Result position | Required content |
|---|---|
| receiving boundary | Decision, situation, consequence, candidate accounts, and unresolved claims. |
| claim-to-evidence matrix | Claim, discriminating observation, selected evidence form, support/contradiction/split/lowering rule, and stopping use. |
| sample and occurrences | Decision-relevant variation, each Work occurrence, source access, missing fields, and evidence-form limits. |
| synthesis | Scoped accounts, retained variants/rivals, contradiction disposition, and attribution of each synthesis move. |
| selected further checks, when needed | Claim and use at issue, why the attainable answer warrants the burden, actual result and remaining uncertainty. For a held-out check, also preserve predictions made before inspection, surprise and revision. When existing evidence suffices, state that basis in the return; no empty held-out record is needed. |
| return | Account(s) or lower result, evidence limits, next receiving use, and reopen condition. |
ME.18:4.3 - What Changes in Practice
Teams stop equating a discovered sequence or interview narrative with the Method. They spend specialist effort only where a receiving decision needs it, know which evidence form supports which claim, and can retain two scoped variants instead of averaging them into a misleading universal account.