Separate what was knowable during an incident from what became obvious only after the outcome.
Open →Decision technique
Predefined update criteria
Decide in advance what evidence should cause a forecast or decision to change.
When to use
A specific reasoning move for a specific problem.
When teams may later reinterpret evidence to preserve a public commitment.
Procedure
Run the technique.
- Write the current decision or forecast.
- List observable evidence that would strengthen it.
- List observable evidence that would weaken or stop it.
- Set a review point before the evidence arrives.
Limit
What this technique cannot guarantee.
Criteria should be revisable when the environment changes, but revisions should be recorded rather than silently rewritten.
Situations
Where this may be useful.
Make a forecast that can later be checked, updated and learned from.
Open →Protect a negotiation from the first number and from pressure to justify a position already taken.
Open →Test whether repetition represents independent evidence or only makes a claim feel familiar.
Open →Evidence-linked concepts
Why this check may matter.
Practice this technique
See when the move becomes useful.
A rare database failure causes a severe outage. The team proposes an expensive control for every system without checking how often the failure occurs or whether the control addresses other risks.
Skill: MetacognitionOpen scenario →A forecast missed badly. After the outcome, the owner says the result was always possible and that the original forecast should be read more generously.
Skill: ForecastingOpen scenario →A team publicly announced that it would never accept a contract longer than one year. New evidence shows a longer term could reduce total risk, but every analysis is now used to defend the public position.
Skill: Decision making under uncertaintyOpen scenario →