PSD.1:4 - Solution
Bind the engagement to the smallest receiving decision or Work that can use a decision-support return. Name the distinct participant positions, subject, horizon, expected return, current scope, and authority boundary. Return the bounded engagement question when those values are adequate; otherwise return the exact missing value instead of inventing it.
PSD.1:4.1 - Name the receiving use before the problem statement
Start with one ordinary sentence:
Make [kind of decision-support return] available to [recipient] about [holder or subject] for [receiving decision or Work] within [horizon]; [choice owner] retains the later choice.
Ask what action can change because of the return and what consequence makes delay, error, or omission material. If no receiving decision or Work can be named, distinguish exploratory inquiry, research, learning, communication, or another direct use rather than manufacturing a decision-support engagement.
The requested return can initially be a bounded question, participant-and-concern account, plural formulation set, model or Method-selection result, alternative gap, comparison, recommendation, blocker, or abstention. Do not require a recommendation when an earlier honest result is more useful.
PSD.1:4.2 - Separate performer, recipient, holder, and choice owner
Name each position separately even when one System may occupy two positions:
- who is expected to prepare the decision-support return;
- who will receive it and for what use;
- which exact holder or subject is under consideration; and
- who owns the later choice, deferral, probe, or reroute.
State any coincidence explicitly. A manager can receive advice without owning the board’s later decision. A team can perform analysis for its own authorized choice, but the analysis Work, recommendation result, and later ChoiceResult remain distinct. A tool, document, score, model, department, job title, or meeting creates none of these positions by visibility alone.
Recover assignment, capability, permission, responsibility, conflict, commitment, or authority only to the extent that the current use relies on it. Use their direct patterns for consequential claims. If the required choice owner or authority basis cannot be recovered, return that exact gap.
PSD.1:4.3 - Bound the subject, horizon, receiving Work, and consequence
State the holder or subject at the grain whose alternatives or consequences can change. Add the relevant configuration, place, population, operating condition, and interval only when they change the answer. State the receiving decision or Work and the horizon over which the return is expected to remain useful.
Name at least one consequence of getting the boundary wrong. This is a recognition cue, not a complete consequence analysis. When affected Systems, missing participants, duties, interests, or representation can change the engagement, continue with PSD.2. When several problem formulations imply materially different actions, continue with PSD.3. When included and excluded concerns need a deliberate scope decision, continue with PSD.4.
PSD.1:4.4 - Choose a provisional boundary and the next truthful branch
Record what is inside the engagement now, what remains outside, and what observation would move that boundary. Do not treat package order or the numbering of patterns as a practitioner sequence. Choose the next branch from the missing result:
| Current situation | Next truthful branch |
|---|---|
| participants, concerns, consequences, or representation are incomplete | recover the participation and concern account through PSD.2 |
| materially different formulations or intervention logics remain hidden | generate plural problem formulations through PSD.3 |
| the engagement has no usable included/excluded scope and reopen basis | set and reopen the problem boundary through PSD.4 |
| the engagement is bounded but needs a model, a choice or combination of problem-structuring Methods, or facilitation | use PSD.5 for the model, PSD.6 for Method selection or combination, or PSD.7 for facilitated inquiry |
| the engagement is bounded and the live gap is alternatives, uncertainty, comparison, or recommendation | begin with the first missing result in PSD.8–PSD.13 |
| another practice owns a premise that can reverse the return | inspect or request the smallest bounded result through A.15.9 |
| an authorized chooser already has an adequate option set and comparison basis | use C.11 or the direct domain choice rule; stop treating engagement framing as the live question |
Several branches may be live together. Their results can proceed concurrently when their subjects and returns are clear. Co-occurrence does not turn the table into a workflow or make the engagement one Method.
PSD.1:4.5 - Record the bounded engagement question or exact stop
Use the smallest account that another participant or later use must recover:
| Result position | Required content |
|---|---|
| intended return | The smallest decision-support result sought now, including blocker or abstention as valid branches. |
| recipient and use | Who receives the result, which decision or Work can change, and the horizon. |
| holder or subject | The exact subject, configuration, place, population, or interval needed by the current question. |
| participant positions | Decision-support performer and choice owner, plus only the assignments or authority facts the current use needs. |
| current boundary | Included concerns and consequences, important exclusions, and why that cut is usable now. |
| missing value or next branch | The exact participant, formulation, scope, source, alternative, evidence, authority, or other result still needed. |
| reopen condition | The smallest observable change that can alter the question, scope, authority boundary, or next branch. |
A compact result may be one sentence and one stop:
For [recipient] and [receiving decision], prepare [return] about [subject] within [horizon]; [choice owner] retains the later choice. The engagement is blocked until [exact missing value] is recovered.
Do not add a role register, stage model, workshop plan, evidence pack, or account field merely because a larger case might need it.
PSD.1:4.6 - Reopen locally and preserve the later choice
Name the event that can invalidate the current boundary: a changed recipient, holder, horizon, receiving Work, authority relation, participant or concern, formulation, source, alternative family, evidence condition, consequence, or later decision. Reopen only the affected position and its dependent results.
A returned recommendation may inform the later decision, and follow-up may observe that later decision, but neither retroactively turns the decision-support performer into the choice owner. If the later choice changes the problem structure, use PSD.14 to determine which follow-up or reframing question is current.
PSD.1:4.7 - What changes in practice
The practitioner stops accepting “the problem” as a sufficient start. Within the first exchange, they can name the return, recipient, subject, horizon, later use, and choice owner—or return the exact missing value. Method selection, modeling, participation, alternative generation, and recommendation Work begin from that result instead of being used to discover silently what the engagement was supposed to accomplish.