Sharpen the Question
A topic cannot be researched efficiently. Turn it into a question whose answer changes a decision.
The question
What specific answer are we missing?
Do this
- Name the mechanism, boundary, or guarantee in question.
- Name the decision the answer will affect.
- Prefer questions that can be answered by documentation, a person, or an experiment.
Example
- “Payments” becomes “Which system is authoritative for paid status, and how does our backend learn that status after the browser closes?”
Ask next
- ?What decision depends on this answer?
- ?Who or what is authoritative?
- ?What observation would settle it?