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The shape of things that make decisions testable
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Job: What Forms and patterns must exist to make decisions observable, testable, and improvable? This page shows the superset "shape of things"—not a second recipes catalog.
Recipe book model:
- Capabilities recipe = JTBD recipe — brings everything together: job, stages, Form/output contract, evidence gates, human authority, agent boundary, falsifier, next move. Not a thin detached howto.
- Artifacts Form/pattern = FORMAT to fill (shape of things for decisions)
- Instance = filled Form produced by running a recipe
Link recipe ↔ Form both ways; the recipe page owns the whole job narrative. Different recipes may use different Forms.
Mode: ORIENT-ROUTE — choose the Form that holds the right strategic work.
Smallest useful move: open the Form that matches your strategic work.
What good looks like
Strategy becomes testable when every critical assumption lives in a named slot with a conviction tag and a kill signal. The Forms below are patterns, not instances — one Form structure can hold many strategy instances.
FORM — Cash Flow Projection
Pattern slots (pass/fail ≤30s):
- Starting cash — the verified cash position at the projection start date
- Monthly burn — recurring operating costs before revenue
- Each assumption + conviction tag — revenue ramps, cost changes, capital events; every assumption carries HIGH / MEDIUM / LOW / UNKNOWN conviction
- Kill signal + date — the observable event and date that invalidates this projection (e.g., "Jan 2027: seed round closes or venture stops")
- Runway floor — the minimum cash balance that triggers stop/pivot
- Forecast-vs-actual slot — space to compare what was predicted with what happened
STOP if: any slot is missing, an assumption is untagged, no kill signal is set, or the runway floor is undefined.
Open the Form: Form not published yet. A reusable cash flow projection instrument is planned.
FORM — Marketing Strategy / Go-to-Market
Compressed anatomy (not a paste of the full GTM template):
- Who + problem — named beneficiary segment and the valuable problem you solve for them
- Unique approach — the one thing you do differently that creates distinctive value
- Primary channel — the single channel that must work for this strategy to succeed (not a list of all channels)
- Positioning exists — a clear statement of how you want to be remembered; not "TBD"
- Year-1 success metric — the one number that proves this strategy is working (not a vanity metric like impressions)
- Kill/pivot signal — the observable evidence that means this strategy has failed and must change
STOP if: channel or positioning is blank, the success metric is vanity-only (likes, impressions, traffic without conversion), or no kill signal is defined.
Open the Form: Form not published yet. A reusable marketing strategy instrument is planned.
FORM — LinkedIn article / contribution
Pattern slots (pass/fail ≤30s stranger test):
- One useful idea — the worthwhile change or valuable insight for the reader
- Encounter ≠ outcome — the distinction is visible (what reader might try vs. what you guarantee)
- Cold-reader test — a stranger can state the central claim in one sentence
- Evidence boundary — where learning stops; what remains unknown or untested
- Human publication owner — named accountable decision maker
- Falsifier — the condition that would invalidate this idea or force a rewrite
STOP if: vanity engagement-only metric (likes without learning) · fabricated proof or invented testimonials · no human publication gate · coercive framing or unsupported outcome promises · surface mismatch (doesn't fit LinkedIn professional article norms).
Open the Form: Form not published yet. See the HOW (recipe) at Create LinkedIn Contribution. This Form is the FORMAT; that recipe shows how to produce an instance.
Collector: Turn one Form into many instances
The Idea Form pattern lets you run many strategic experiments under one structure. Each instance links back to its Form through a form_id field.
How it works
- The Form defines slot IDs and pass/fail rules (one Form = one pattern).
- Instance rows hold filled slots for each strategic experiment (many instances per Form).
- Dual-surface structure: Form defines slots; instances populate them.
- Completion protocol: an instance is complete only when every required Form slot is filled, tagged, and has a kill signal.
Instance list lives under the Form — never hide the Form behind a list of ideas. The Form is the contract; instances are evidence.
No clinic/booking CTA — Artifacts is an ORIENT page, not a service offer. The Forms above are patterns you implement yourself.
Continue to Evidence to compare what your artifact predicted with what actually happened. If the artifact's assumptions were wrong, return to Strategy to revise the direction, or to Decisions to bound the next test differently.