| How can an engagement escape the incumbent without producing a decorative idea list? | Use objectives and materially different mechanisms to guide alternative construction. | Unstructured group brainstorming is cheap; a supplied option menu is cheaper still. | Adapt: :4.1–:4.3 add concern-led prompts and independent generation where anchoring matters. The deliberate cost is a short construction pass before comparison; an adequate existing set takes the cheap exit. | Borgonovo et al.’s 2026 decision-analysis review, especially its value-focused-thinking discussion, is a current synthesis candidate. Keeney’s 2012 value-focused brainstorming supplies the specific objective-led and individual-before-group procedure. Its policy example is not universal effectiveness evidence. | Reopen if a simpler elicitation gives the same material breadth or the objectives themselves suppress a live formulation. |
| When is a staged alternative genuinely different? | Preserve options only through explicit dependencies, observations, and feasible later changes. | Compare only fixed end-state projects, or label an underspecified pilot “adaptive”. | Adapt: :4.2–:4.4 require a specified and qualified first commitment, later question, and delay or lock-in consequence. The unfinished S example shows why a staging label is insufficient. Additional description is justified only when timing changes the comparison. | The 2019 DAPP chapter is the best-known-line candidate for pathway dependencies and failure conditions; its water-policy applications do not supply PSD’s local thresholds, authority, or universal sequence. | Reopen when monitoring, lead time, or reversibility makes the staged direction infeasible or no longer distinct. |
| Does a novelty result already supply the alternatives? | Keep characterization, generation stewardship, and local choice separate. | Read a novelty profile or archive as a ready option set. | Adopt: :4.4 uses C.17 and C.18 only for their actual objects; :4.6 retains the PSD candidate result. This avoids reconstructing machinery when ordinary candidate descriptions suffice. | Current C.17 characterizes bounded novelty or use; C.18 governs generation, archive, and front stewardship; C.38 forms same-result ways. Their exact boundaries defeat the broader reading, but none supplies holder feasibility. | Reopen only if a direct contribution or the receiving candidate question changes. |