Practical Tools

These are the working versions of the tools introduced in the book, collected so they can be used without rereading the chapters that explain them. Each is designed to be completed in a first pass in under twenty minutes, to produce a decision or a next test rather than a document, and to be revisited as evidence changes. None of them requires any software beyond a page and a pen, and none requires Make it RAIN.

A rule that applies to every tool: write what you have observed, not what you believe. “Said the reports take a senior person most of a day each month” is an observation. “Has a strong need” is an interpretation. The tools work when the entries could be checked by someone else.