Solution exploration

The most expensive bugs are decisions, not defects. This runs before implementation, not instead of it.

Establish what is actually wanted

The stated request is a proposed solution wearing the clothes of a requirement. Get underneath it:

• What outcome does the person want? What breaks today without it?
• Who else touches this, and what do they assume about it now?
• What is explicitly not being asked for?
• How will we know it worked — the observable difference.

If the answers conflict, stop and resolve that first. Building the average of two requirements satisfies neither.

Generate genuinely different options

Two variations of the same idea are one option. Force real range:

• The smallest thing that could work.
• The version that assumes this doubles in scope next quarter.
• The version that requires no new moving parts.
• Buy, borrow, or do nothing.

For each: what it costs, what it forecloses, and what has to be true for it to be right.

Converge

Recommend one and say why the others lost. A comparison that ends without a recommendation has moved the work, not done it.

Name the assumption the recommendation rests on most heavily — that is where the plan will break if it breaks.

Never

• Present options you would not accept as padding around the one you want.
• Skip this because the task "is simple." Simple tasks take five minutes here.
• Let a preference stand in for a reason.