STR.7:1 - Problem frame

Use this pattern when a consequential strategic question remains and someone proposes a trial, pilot or experiment to answer it. First ask which attainable result could change the choice or warranted claim, and whether obtaining that result is worth its full burden.

The first useful result may be to use existing evidence, narrow a proposal, retain a possibility without testing it or stop. When an experiment is worthwhile, the result is a bounded design that connects possible observations to a decision, with the needed authority, resources, protections and stopping conditions. Designing it does not establish that it has been authorized or performed.

The practical gain is to buy useful evidence without making “run a pilot” the compulsory response to uncertainty. The scope is strategic use of an experiment; qualified domain methods retain experimental design, measurement, causal inference and any necessary professional assurance.

Do not add an experiment when a sufficient current comparison already answers the question. A required permission cannot be acquired by exposing people or data first and calling the exposure a test. A retained option may deserve memory or maintenance without a new investigation.