For early-stage product discovery.

Early-stage product work fails not because teams can’t build, but because they don’t make explicit, reversible, high-quality decisions under uncertainty. This operating framework makes judgment visible, testable, and legible through a set of light weight artifacts that guide decision-making and compound judgement.

How the Framework Works

Early-stage product work is not linear. It moves through loops of uncertainty, learning, and commitment.

This framework structures that loop into five repeatable phases:

1. Problem - What problem is worth deciding on?
2. Risk - What must be true for this to work?
3. Inquiry - What is the cheapest way to learn?
4. Selection - Do we double down, adapt or stop?
5. Memory - What judgement do we carry forward?

Every cycle produces artifacts. Those artifacts are the work.

The Artifacts

Short documents to write in order to force a decision.

1. Problem & Hypothesis Memo Template

2. Product Direction Memo Template

3. Experiment Plan Template

4. Prototype Spec (Low-Fidelity)

5. Decision Memo (Keep / Pivot / Stop)

6. Kill/Keep Memo

7. Portfolio Summary