Framework boundary, sources and refresh
What this framework covers
Problem Structuring and Decision Support serves practitioners and assisting agents who help someone frame a question, conduct an inquiry, compare alternatives and receive a warranted result. The useful return may be an engagement question, several formulations, a model-use account, a comparison, a recommendation, or a blocker that identifies the unsupported premise. The recipient’s later decision remains separately governed.
The framework also addresses the Methods and arrangements by which that professional help is developed, coordinated and continued. It does not promise that one technique, score, workshop or published description settles an actual client’s problem. Its guidance is source-informed; the combined teaching cases are constructed demonstrations, not evidence that the whole pattern language has been implemented or is empirically superior.
| Recurring difficulty and characteristic failure | Useful result family and direct entry | Material connection |
|---|---|---|
| The question, participants or scope are unclear; a sponsor’s first story is treated as everyone’s problem. | PSD.1–PSD.4: a bounded engagement, participation and concern account, plural formulations and a revisable boundary. | These results qualify what later inquiry or comparison must answer. They are reused when adequate, not repeated before every calculation. |
| Models, Methods or discussions fail to make one another’s contributions usable; an agenda, diagram or agreement stands in for warranted inquiry. | PSD.5–PSD.7: complementary model claims, a usable inquiry Method and shared or contested meanings. | A join must preserve the question and limits of the supplying contribution. Material corrections reach the analysis or return they change. |
| Alternatives or their preferences are asserted before consequences, values and uncertainty justify them. | PSD.8–PSD.12: a live candidate set, value account, uncertainty representation, consequence comparison and bounded robustness result. | A partial comparison remains partial. A missing candidate, protected condition or reversal can reopen the question whose answer the comparison relied on. |
| Advice, later action and professional change are confused; delivery is treated as choice, follow-up as automatic action, or publication as cultural uptake. | PSD.13–PSD.17: a qualified recommendation, follow-up arrangement, justified repertoire change, reconciliation of simultaneous inquiry and bounded cultural-continuation decision. | Each use opens only when its own question is live. A recommendation does not require changing the professional repertoire or cultural arrangements. |
The four Parts arrange these recurring difficulties for reading. They do not assert a Method sequence, a hierarchy of professional importance or a partition of every real situation. Pattern numbers are stable addresses in this framework. An actual inquiry may use one pattern, return to an earlier result or need several contributions at once.
The development-direction profile is a non-pattern use account connecting those contributions. Construct a Bounded Development Opportunity describes a separately identified reusable Method and can be entered without an adviser. Both are reader support within this framework; neither adds a pattern or turns every cross-pattern use into one composite Method. The applications show their connections without replacing their full guidance.
What remains with another practice
Use a direct source when it owns the whole current question. If a chooser already has an adequate option set and needs only their own decision, use FPF C.11 or the applicable domain decision rule. If an engagement needs just one missing specialist result, FPF A.15.9 gives the bounded inspect, reuse or request entry.
| Needed contribution | What PSD can do | What it does not supply |
|---|---|---|
| Human capability demand, diagnosis, intervention or transfer | State which person’s later Work and which advice premise need a qualified result; use the direct human-practice entry named in the development profile. | A diagnosis, effective curriculum, learning effect, occupational opportunity or demonstrated transfer from a course title or general guidance. |
| Organization, operating or provider arrangement | Specify the result, configuration, use, horizon and acceptance question to compare; retain independent alternatives when one premise fails. | This client’s whole-arrangement comparison, implementation capacity or authority from a position description, operating account or published Method. |
| AI/model or other technical evaluation and safety | Identify the configuration and intended use, select a result request when its obtainable decision contribution warrants acquisition, and reconsider only advice that depends on a changed premise. | Evidence for configuration B from A, deployment permission from an evaluation, or practical reachability from novelty or an archive label. |
| Physical, scientific, financial, legal, ethical, safety or governance facts and rules | Expose the premise, its owner, qualification window and effect on the return. | A local threshold, mechanism, permission, professional duty or protected condition by analogy with another field or holder. |
| An evolutionary population or lineage | Recognize the absence of a population-local recipient and choice owner in the represented case. | A development recommendation to that population. A researcher selecting an intervention has a separate question, scientific basis and authority. |
These are boundaries of this guidance, not declarations that the neighboring practices or all their results are unavailable. A published Method may be available while the application-specific result is still missing. Ask for the smallest result that can change the answer; do not wait for every neighboring framework to be packaged, and do not fill a gap with a same-named result from another subject.
A real application must qualify the relied-on content for the stated subject, configuration, receiving use and horizon. A.10 governs that reliance, while the relevant domain practice governs the claim itself. Discovery, availability, evidence, applicability and authority are different questions.
Where the source arguments live
Each pattern’s SoTA-Echoing section owns its substantive comparison: the working question, selected move, serious rival, trade-off, source limits and observation that would reopen it. Use that argument before relying on a citation. The following map is a return aid, not a second source doctrine, a field census or independent confirmation of the sources it condenses.
| Source-informed contribution | Source line used and substantive limit | Return when the answer changes |
|---|---|---|
| Engagement, participation and revisable framing | Smith and Shaw’s 2019 PSM characterization and Kogetsidis’s 2025 application review inform the continuing diverse PSM branch. Kelly and Gero 2022, Litster and colleagues 2024, and Nickel and colleagues 2024 inform non-equivalent frames and contextual revision. The bounded reviews and studies supply no universal ontology, representation guarantee or superior protocol. | PSD.1, PSD.2, PSD.3 and PSD.4: change the affected receiving-use, participation, formulation or boundary claim. |
| Model, Method and facilitation joins | Marttunen, Lienert and Belton 2017 provide the older critical PSM–MCDA combination anchor; Lami and Tavella 2019 supply an exploratory workshop contrast. Schwarzburg and colleagues 2024 distinguish confidence-related factors from validation. Franco and Greiffenhagen 2018 and Zimmermann and Curran 2023 contribute situated interaction evidence, not guaranteed consensus or general transfer. | PSD.5, PSD.6 and PSD.7: requalify the particular claim, Method contribution, join or attributed meaning. |
| Alternative construction, values and comparison | Borgonovo and colleagues’ 2026 decision-analysis synthesis and Greco, Słowiński and Wallenius’s 2025 MCDA synthesis inform selective analytical contributions and preference-model fit. Keeney 2012 is a historical generation ingredient; Marttunen and colleagues 2019 inform disciplined objective simplification. These sources do not supply the engagement’s values or warrant one total score. | PSD.8, PSD.9 and PSD.11: revisit material alternatives, lost value distinctions or the actual comparison relation. |
| Uncertainty, adaptation and robustness | Lempert and colleagues 2024 connect low-confidence knowledge to decision-relevant inquiry. The 2019 DAPP account contributes pathway timing and failure conditions; the 2026 decision-analysis synthesis informs sensitivity and information acquisition. Scenario membership establishes no probability, and a formal method supplies no local threshold or authority. | PSD.10 and PSD.12: narrow the stated range, reopen a reversal or qualify a feasible information question. |
| Professional recommendation and development-direction use | PSD.13 uses NCDA 2024 within its profession and selected ICMCI v4.0 engagement clauses as a bounded older comparator. The profile’s separate source account qualifies the used portions on 2 September 2026, including the ICMCI AI Code v1.0 of May 2026 for AI used by an adviser. That code is not AI-holder evaluation, and the older competence clauses are not represented as the complete latest standard. | PSD.13 and the profile source-responsibility account: revisit the service or source condition on which the advice relied. |
| Opportunity construction before a settled result | Phillips’s 2025 practitioner synthesis informs selective future exploration; NCDG 2024 supplies a bounded human information/alternative contribution; historical value-focused generation is one ingredient. Their combination supports a prospective construction Method, not empirical proof that its opportunities are reachable or effective. | The opportunity Method and its source-responsibility account: revise the changed search, dependency, reachability or next-question claim. |
| Follow-up under expected and unexpected change | Lynch and colleagues 2025 contribute domain-specific reconsideration triggers; Manley and colleagues 2026 contribute a perspective on targeted and broader observation. Their natural-resource settings do not set every client’s monitoring mix, threshold or institutional response. | PSD.14: reconsider the affected observation, interpretation, service obligation or recommendation use. |
| Professional Method development | PSM comparisons, Borgonovo and colleagues 2026 and Franco and colleagues’ 2021 behavioural-OR synthesis inform contribution-specific repertoire and evidence questions. Kogetsidis’s 2026 online review covers selected journals in 2010–2024; publication frequency is neither a practice census nor practical worth. | PSD.15: change the specific offering, applicability or evidence claim, not the whole repertoire merely because a paper appeared. |
| Simultaneous inquiry | The older expert/facilitated contrast in Franco and Montibeller 2010, Franco and Nielsen’s 2018 workshops, Franco and colleagues 2021 and Cunico and colleagues 2024 support bounded comparisons of interaction and challenge arrangements. They do not make one staffing or participation design universally best. | PSD.16: requalify the actual interaction and local test; use C.32.MWA only when several structures need a joint synthesis. |
| Cultural continuation | Yearworth’s 2024 chapter summaries inform a practice-facing account. Voltan and Kells 2026 remain a conceptual GenAI-assisted proposal requiring practical testing; Czaplicka, Baumann and Rahwan 2025 offer a simplified mediation model. Neither publication, generated output nor a modeled mechanism proves professional uptake or cultural effect. | PSD.17: revise the population scope or the affected claim about receiving interpretation, mediation or continuation. |
Publication years identify sources; they do not by themselves identify a qualification window or show that a claim is still reliable. Older anchors remain useful for the particular contribution named above, while later work can repair their limits. Currentness is bounded to the actual inspected claim and intended use. No table here guarantees continuous monitoring or validates a local case.
Change only what the new basis changes
Retain the source and conditions behind each premise that matters to your recommendation. When a source changes, revisit the advice that relied on it and state any revised limit. The source responsibility and references below identify the qualified sources and explain which claims to reconsider.
When a source, configuration or receiving condition changes:
- Identify the claim that used it and whether the new information concerns the same subject and use. A notice is not yet a replacement evaluation.
- Choose the guidance for the changed premise and the result needed. With an unchanged source but changed actual conditions, use the direct subject guidance. For one already-known bounded source-reliance question, use A.10; for a materially changed source claim whose receiving uses still need discovery or closure across several uses, use A.10.1; for currentness or a scoped refresh-planning or reporting result, use G.11 under its conditions. Keep independent supported content and return material missing premises as limits. Select a further supplier request through A.15.9 and C.11.DUA only when its attainable contribution warrants the whole acquisition burden. A compatible reference repair or sufficient direct answer needs no duplicate common account; a no-impact claim still needs adequate coverage and support.
- Return the strongest answer still supported: unchanged within scope, narrowed, blocked, returned to its contributor or replaced by later advice. Use PSD.14 when a decision-support follow-up question is live.
- Revise the reusable pattern, Method or profile only when its own claim changes. A client-specific result, professional service duty or observed outcome retains its own owner and history.
For example, loss of a mobile pump’s access premise reopens that branch, not independent fixed-option arithmetic. Loss of trained reviewers invalidates a staffing-dependent mixed probe, not an unrelated internal option or the tool evaluation within its own scope. A changed professional disclosure condition concerns the applicable service, even when the developing holder is not AI. An unsupported transfer from one learner or model configuration cannot be repaired by broadening the name of the original evidence.
Keep earlier source states recoverable when revising this guidance. An updated description does not rewrite past Work, earlier advice, prior choices or their evidence. Changes that alter a recurring problem, useful result, boundary between practices responsible for a result or claim, or whole-field promise need the corresponding content decision; changed links or presentation alone do not create a new practice or prove improvement.
Source responsibility and references
The Development-direction advising profile and Construct a Bounded Development Opportunity method use the following sources for the purposes shown. The cited portions were qualified on 2 September 2026. Apply each source within the stated limits and reconsider a consequential claim when its source or use changes.
| Source and inspected portion | Selected role and affected content | Limit and local reopen |
|---|---|---|
| Keeney, Value-Focused Brainstorming, 2012, publisher abstract | Historical generation anchor: explicit values inform alternatives; individual generation can precede group anchoring. Opportunity Method §2. | Not a current-prevalence claim or general reachability theory. Reopen if a stronger generation line changes the inquiry’s useful action. |
| Phillips, Decision Analysis for Practitioners, 2025, “Requisite Decision Models,” “Decision Conferences and Workshops,” “Decision Models as Transitional Objects,” “Decision Analysis Technology” | Contemporary practitioner synthesis for purpose-dependent future exploration and selective use of analytical ingredients. Opportunity Method’s inquiry/choice separation and source-informed design. | Experience-based account, not validation of this cross-holder construction Method or every future outcome. Reopen on a material limitation of that use. |
| NCDG 2024, CD2/CD3 | Human-branch alternatives, consequences and qualified current career information. Both human examples. | Does not supply intervention, transfer, organization or AI mechanisms. Reopen the human information-use claims when their source or receiving use changes. |
| NCDA Code of Ethics 2024, A.2, A.10 and E.2 | Human career-service participation, assessment competence and referral/closure boundaries. Profile engagement and return. | Profession-specific conditions; applicability must be established. No efficacy, legal or AI-holder assessment conclusion follows. Reopen only affected service claims. |
| ICMCI competence framework v4.0, 2021, C.1.1–2, C.2.1 and E.3.5 | Agreed consulting engagement content, client involvement and material conflict disclosure. Profile engagement/return. | A verified bounded baseline, not a claim that v4.0 is the latest framework. Reopen when an applicable later clause changes the used service condition. |
| ICMCI AI Code v1.0, May 2026, §§1.2, 2.2, 3.1–3.4, 5.1–5.4, 7 | Adds a qualified current source for AI used by an adviser: professional responsibility, material-output checking, data restrictions and client disclosure. | Applies within its stated professional/adoption scope. Does not supply AI-holder evaluation or intervention evidence. Reopen the affected service use, not every holder claim. |
The ICMCI June 2026 release announcement supports the AI Code’s publication context. Its professional clauses above come from the Code itself, not the announcement. The 2026 competence-framework update presentation is separately discoverable; the present account makes no claim to have inspected or replaced the entire revised certification framework. The older selected engagement clauses are not represented as a complete current standard.
Obtain the result needed for the developing subject
| Method or source | Contribution to advising |
|---|---|
| FPF A.3.1 and A.3.2 | Identify the reusable method and what describes its performance. Evidence of actual performance and effectiveness comes from the application. |
| FPF A.15.9, A.10 and A.10.1 | Obtain a needed specialist result, keep its evidence and limits, and revisit the advice that depends on a changed source. |
| FPF C.18, with C.19 when its search question applies | Support open-ended generation and use of an archive. Obtain results from the relevant domain practice to establish the opportunity’s practical reachability and value in the case being considered. |
| HCD.1, HCD.3 and HCD.4 (complete HCD first edition) | Investigate demand from later human work, a limiting development target and a capability profile. These are the HCD contributions named for this PSD use; other HCD patterns remain available only under their own working conditions. Further intervention, curriculum and transfer results require their relevant methods and evidence. |
| OCE.8 | Compare whole organizational arrangements once the needed result and its conditions are sufficiently established. Bring the actual organization’s comparison back to the advice. |
| The applicable technical or professional practice | Supply the strategy, operating, AI evaluation, safety, authority or other case-specific premise that can change the opportunity or recommendation. |
The sources support the method’s ingredients and their limits. Testing the combined opportunity-construction method, or establishing the effect of an intervention, requires evidence from its actual use.
Keep source changes and case changes distinct
When a fact about one person, organization, model or provider changes, reconsider the opportunity or advice that depended on it. A changed human career-service condition affects the human engagement, assessment or return that used it; a changed consulting disclosure condition affects the applicable service. Keep the independent evidence for other subjects and conclusions.
Revise the reusable method when new evidence or a better approach changes its search, opportunity construction, dependency reasoning, reachability test or stopping rule. The person maintaining the advising profile and opportunity method retains the changed claim, its source, the affected method or pattern and the revised limit. Reopen a wider PSD contribution when one of its shared inputs or results changes.
A person using advice keeps the relevant subject, configuration, intended use, period and source conditions visible. Actual service relationships determine consent, confidentiality, competence, referral and closure duties. Apply the duties established for that relationship, and obtain a missing professional or technical result before relying on the affected conclusion.