hypothesis-designlisted

# Hypothesis Design ## When to use Use this when the team is about to gather data with no point of view, at risk of analyzing everything and concluding nothing. It is the right skill when you want an answer-first approach: state the likely answer up front as a set of disprovable hypotheses, then spend effort only on the analyses that could confirm or kill them. It is the counter to boiling the ocean. ## What it does It turns a question into a small set of sharp, disprovable hypotheses and pairs each with its decisive test. A good hypothesis is a specific claim that could be wrong, and for which you can name the evidence that would disprove it. The skill produces a prioritized hypothesis set and, for each, the single analysis that would settle it, so the workplan is lean and pointed. ## Method The skill runs hypothesis-led problem solving, the practice of leading with a provisional answer and testing to disprove it. 1. State the provisional answer. Given the key question and what the team already knows, write the best current guess at the answer in one sentence. This is deliberately committal. An answer-first plan needs an answer to test. 2. Decompose the answer into component hypotheses. Break the provisional answer into the two to five claims that must each hold for the answer to be right. Draw these from the issue tree branches where one exists. Each becomes a hypothesis. 3. Write each hypothesis to be disprovable. A well-formed hypothesis is: - Specific: it names