RMP.5:1 - Problem Frame

Use this pattern when research material, an analysis or an emerging interpretation is available and someone needs to say what claim it supports and what criticism changes that answer. Begin with the proposed claim and follow one consequential connection from the actual material, through the analysis, to that claim.

A simulation may reproduce its reported output while leaving its relation to field failures untested. A stream team may have many valid downstream readings and still lack the comparison needed to identify their cause. In either case, the first useful answer distinguishes the result actually obtained from the stronger interpretation being proposed.

This Method produces a ClaimCandidate with a CriticismRecord: the bounded answer and the account of the examinations actually made, what they changed and what remains unresolved. These names describe the content needed for criticism and use. An annotated analysis, existing notebook or short qualified answer may carry both; they do not require two new files.

The gain is an answer that can be used, narrowed or challenged now. Reuse an adequate supplied analysis. Enter directly with inherited material when its origin, Method and limits can be recovered for the present question; a fictitious earlier RMP sequence adds nothing.

Use a qualified domain Method directly when the task is routine calculation, qualification or interpretation under supplied criteria. RMP.5 does not supply a missing disciplinary Method, authorize access, choose the receiving action or automatically commission further research. Return a missing source, design premise or criterion precisely. Use RMP.6 when deciding how to address a remaining credibility threat would change the next useful move.