Deciding and moving on
What are the four roads after a test?
Why it works this way
At the end of a test, nothing is picked for you. The road is yours.
We can tell you what your evidence does and does not support. We cannot tell you which way your business should go, and a product that picked for you from one test would have taken over the one decision that is yours. So every road looks the same: no default, no "recommended". The product proposes what to test. What to do with the result is yours.
What we gave up: a recommended road, and the comfort of being told.
What it is
Once you have called a test of one idea, a card in your conversation with Iris, your AI guide, lays out four roads. They open after a pass as well as a fail, because a pass on thin evidence is not a decision.
On the card you see what each road claims, then one sentence on what it costs on this test. In full, the four are:
- Test it again, properly. Claims: you might be right, and what came back is not enough to bet on yet. Keeps: everything, and this round stays on the board as your first bit of evidence. Costs: if the next test is not genuinely tougher, it will tell you what you already think.
- Right people, wrong idea. Claims: you picked the right people, and what you offered them was not it. Keeps: who you are building for, the problems you found and everything real people told you. Costs: this idea, the Blueprint behind it and the tests built on it.
- Change one thing. Claims: the idea holds, and one piece did not: who you asked, the price, the promise or how you reached them. Keeps: nearly everything, the Blueprint included. Costs: it is the road that lets you keep tinkering with something already dead.
- Stop here. Claims: this one is not worth any more of your time. Keeps: a record of what you tried and what came back, yours to reuse. Costs: it will still sting.
How to use it
- Call the test and tell Iris what happened (see "How do I compare options and make the call?").
- Read the four roads.
- Two roads ask you to name something first. For Test it again, say what you will do differently, because the same test again cannot tell you more. For Change one thing, name the one thing. The button stays inactive until you have written it.
- Press Choose this. The road is recorded with the date, and the run that happened is kept.
- For the two roads that keep going, the test opens again. You set a new bar for the new run.
What it will never do
- Pick a road for you, pre-select one or mark one as recommended.
- Let you call it "Change one thing" without naming the thing.
- Make stopping a loss of your record. What you tried and what came back stay on the board.
If something looks off
- No card yet. The roads open once a result is recorded. Call the test first.
- A test that compares cards ends in a pick first (see "How do I compare options and make the call?"), not in these four roads.
- "That round already has a decision recorded, so nothing changed." You chose already. If it says the round is open again, log how it went first.
- You chose the wrong one. A road you have chosen cannot be changed from the card, so read each one before you press Choose this. What you tried and what came back stay on the board either way.