Curiosity map
Use this record to choose an inquiry that can change a piece of work. It is a book-developed practice artifact, not an official SSA-CMM assessment. Paper, a document editor, or a plain-text file works.
Blank reusable template
Project and date:
Current output or decision:
Link or location of the actual work:
Parent attempt: What happened in an earlier attempt that gave rise to this inquiry?
Proposed benefit: Who might use the result, and for what task? Mark untested audience claims as hypotheses.
Questions connected to the work
| Question | Decision it could change | What I observed | What I assume or do not know | Evidence needed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Add only enough rows to expose meaningful choices. A topic such as “marketing” needs a question before it can guide an inquiry.
Inquiry selected for this attempt
Selected question:
Why this question now:
Attractive alternative, and why it can wait:
My starting expectation:
Available input and evidence route:
Output I will produce:
Time or access boundary:
Stopping condition:
Result that would make me revise my expectation:
What this attempt cannot establish:
Result and continuation
What I attempted:
What I observed, with a link to the output:
What changed in the original work:
Unresolved question:
Next inquiry and its connection to this result:
Parked question:
Condition for revisiting the parked question:
Worked sample: fictional Himura Inc. case
Project: Himura Inc.; design practice, not customer research.
Current output: workshop-brief-v1, linked to claim-evidence-ledger-v1.
Parent attempt: The fifth practice specimen proposed an action-list task and provisional checking criteria. Its activity still needs to give each learner an actual opportunity to attempt that task.
Proposed benefit: Help an independent educator specify a useful learner task. This remains a business hypothesis; no demand has been observed.
| Question | Decision it could change | What Audy observed in the fictional practice | What remains unknown | Evidence needed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Will the proposed activity produce an action list that someone can check against the commitments in the notes? | The activity and its connection to the proposed task | The fifth specimen names an action-list task and candidate criteria; the activity remains undecided | Whether the activity requires an individual attempt and exposes the distinctions in the criteria | Inspect synthetic notes, a candidate activity, and an action-list attempt |
| Do independent educators seek help defining learner tasks? | Whether to pursue the service idea | No customer evidence yet | Actual preparation difficulties and willingness to seek help | Future consent-based conversations about real preparation work |
| Would a digital form simplify preparation? | Whether to add a tool | No repeated form-related bottleneck established | Whether a form would save effort at an acceptable standard | Repeated manual preparation records, then a bounded comparison if warranted |
Selected question: Will the proposed activity produce an action list that someone can check against the commitments in the notes?
Why now: The answer can improve the brief using material Audy can create and inspect herself.
Alternative postponed: A market inquiry matters, but synthetic design work cannot substitute for real educator evidence. Audy will prepare for that inquiry separately.
Starting expectation: Requiring an individual action-list attempt will make the relationship between the activity and the proposed outcome easier to inspect.
Input: Invented meeting notes containing a commitment, a suggestion, and an agreement with an unspecified owner.
Output: A proposed activity, a practice input, and a check that applies the existing candidate criteria to an actual action-list attempt.
Boundary: An illustrative forty-minute preparation session; no outside communication or real personal data.
Stopping condition: Audy can show whether the check detects an unsupported owner or deadline, or name the specific distinction she still needs to understand.
Counterexample: The revised outcome still permits an exercise with no learner action-list attempt.
Cannot establish: Learner improvement, educator demand, optimal workshop duration, or business viability.
Observed result in the fictional case: A discussion-only activity could cover the topic without producing an individual action list. A clean set of notes would also leave the distinction between suggestions and commitments untested.
Inspectable contrast: Discussion-only: “Discuss what makes follow-up useful.” Revised activity: “Individually turn the supplied notes into an action list, then compare the result with the notes and candidate criteria.” The inquiry-brief specimen supplies the ambiguous notes and faulty answer used to test this revision.
Revision: Carry the existing owner/date and commitment/suggestion criteria into the inquiry brief; use ambiguous notes and require an individual attempt before comparing answers.
Next inquiry: How should the brief connect the learner task, actual attempt, and acceptance criteria? Record it in inquiry-brief-v1.
Parked question: Could a digital form help assemble practice examples?
Return condition: Revisit only if repeated manual work identifies example assembly as a meaningful bottleneck.
Acceptance criteria
- Another reader can locate the unfinished work and the parent attempt.
- Every serious candidate question points to a decision, rather than only a topic.
- Observations, assumptions, and missing evidence remain distinguishable.
- The selected inquiry uses an evidence route appropriate to the claim.
- The result changes the work or explains precisely why it cannot yet change.
- A parked question has a return condition, and a next inquiry has a reason to exist.
- Without the assistant, you can explain why you chose this question and what the attempt cannot prove.
Common failure and repair
Failure: The map becomes a long collection of interests, tools, and reading links.
Repair: Return to the unfinished output. Keep the questions that could alter its next revision. Move unrelated interests into open exploration without treating them as project obligations.
Failure: A synthetic example is recorded as proof of customer need.
Repair: Relabel it as design practice. Preserve the market question and specify the external evidence required to investigate it.
Failure: The session repeatedly runs past its boundary.
Repair: Reduce the promised output or choose a preparatory question. Record what remains unresolved instead of removing the stopping condition.
Return to Chapter 3.