think-abstraction-ladderinglisted

<!-- thinking-framework-skills | https://github.com/product-on-purpose/thinking-framework-skills | Apache-2.0 --> # Abstraction Laddering Every problem arrives at some altitude, and the altitude is usually accidental: it is wherever someone happened to be standing when they noticed it. Too low and you optimize a detail that does not matter ("make the button blue"); too high and you produce a true but useless aspiration ("delight the customer"). Abstraction laddering moves the problem along one vertical axis - up by asking "why? / to what end?" and down by asking "how? / what specifically?" - to find the altitude at which it is actually workable. The output is an **abstraction ladder**, an ordered set of rungs with one chosen as the working level, not a discussion. ## When to Use - A request names a bare solution ("add a dashboard", "build an integration") but the purpose it serves is unstated. - A problem is stated as a vague aspiration ("improve engagement", "be more strategic") with no concrete handle to act on. - People are arguing past each other and may simply be working at different levels of the same problem. - Before committing effort, to decide deliberately at what altitude to attack a problem rather than inheriting the accidental one. ## When NOT to Use - **Altitude is not the issue.** If the problem needs a different kind of reframing - a stakeholder shift, an inversion, an is/is-not boundary, or weighing several rival framings - use `think-problem-restatement