Memory Inventory

Use this with Chapter 8. Inventory the records needed for one recurring task and test what you can recover and use. This book-developed practice is not an official SSA-CMM assessment.

Blank reusable template

Inventory name and revision:

Task this working set supports:

Next decision or output:

Who will use these records:

Material authorized for this exercise:

Important unknowns:

Record	Purpose and question it should answer	Location or pointer	Status: source, inference, decision, preference, or practice	Current or historical role	What would make it need review?

A source record preserves what the source says; its label does not certify that the source is true. A historical failed attempt can remain valuable without becoming a current instruction.

Retrieval and use checks

Begin from a question about the task rather than an exact filename. Record the material actually available to the person or assistant doing the check.

Question	Starting location and route taken	Material recovered	Applicable status/version recognizable?	Evidence or rationale recoverable?	Fresh use check and observed result	Limitation or repair

What I should be able to explain without opening the records:

What I may retrieve when needed:

Where I need additional evidence or expertise:

Verify one saved change

Record changed and intended result:

Actual saved location reopened:

Wording and links inspected:

What happened:

Remaining limitation:

Portability observation

Can the selected records open outside the original application?

Which links, comments, status labels, or other dependencies remain usable?

What has not been checked?

Fictional worked sample: Audy and Himura Inc.

Inventory: memory-inventory-v1.

Task: Prepare and review another version of the proposed thirty-minute workshop in which adults convert synthetic meeting notes into an action list.

Next decision: Explain and apply the current evidence boundary without losing the reasons behind it.

User: Audy, or a fresh assistant receiving selected synthetic material under Audy’s direction.

Unknowns: Customer need, willingness to pay, and learner outcomes remain untested. No real customer material is included.

Record	Purpose and question	Working location or pointer	Status	Current or historical role	Review trigger
`workshop-brief-v1`	What task is the proposed workshop meant to teach?	Starting proposal and later working change	Proposed design and labeled assumptions	Current provisional brief	Learner task or scope changes
`claim-evidence-ledger-v1`	Which claims are observed, inferred, chosen, or untested?	Claims ledger	Mixed, with individual status labels	Current claim accounting	New relevant evidence or public use of a claim
`connection-map-v1`	Why was “every action must have an owner” rejected?	Connection map	Historical proposal and reviewed reasoning	History; rejected rule is clearly labeled	Rationale proves unclear or task changes
`learning-loop-v1`	Which instructions apply now, and what did the later practice reveal?	Chapter 7 entry and history, with later updates noted below	Review history and pointer to current instructions	Existing authority route remains intact	Accepted instruction change or new failure
Current drafting instructions and review sheet	What should the next draft preserve and flag?	Initial pointer; later Chapter 11 pointer	Reviewed operating decision	Current instruction; no duplicate introduced	Accepted revision after a new observation
Relevant synthetic inputs and practice outputs	What did the owner and deadline examples actually contain?	Run-01 and run-02	Synthetic sources and constructed practice outputs	Evidence for a narrow design check	Input changes or a different behavior needs testing
`action-list-rule-rationale-v1`	How do the owner, deadline, and “soon” examples explain the present rule?	Worked rationale below	Reviewed explanation with links	Supports current instruction; does not replace it	Current instruction or support changes

Fictional retrieval record

Question	Route and result	Repair or limitation
Which drafting instructions apply now?	Followed `learning-loop-v1`; recovered current instructions and review sheet.	This route already worked at the end of Chapter 7.
Why may an agreed action remain with an unspecified owner, and what did the deadline failure add?	Current instruction was found. Recovering the full reason required separate searches through the connection map and loop history.	Added `action-list-rule-rationale-v1` linking existing current instruction and relevant comparisons. Repeated the route and opened each link.
What prevents “soon” from becoming an invented date?	Followed the rationale to the changed practice example and the current evidence boundary.	Supports this distinction; does not establish reliability for every kind of ambiguous note.

Fresh use check: Supply the current instructions, rationale, brief, and synthetic reminder example: “We could send a reminder on Thursday; a decision will be made tomorrow.” Inspect whether Thursday remains proposed rather than becoming a confirmed deadline. Record the actual output when performing your own check; a supplied rule is not proof that an assistant followed it.

Unaided knowledge: Audy should explain the difference between a suggestion and an agreement, and why a missing owner or imprecise deadline must remain visible.

Retrieved details: Exact source wording, publication metadata, and the particular input/output pair used in a previous check.

Further evidence needed: Real audience need and actual learner performance; the existing folder cannot supply evidence that was never collected.

Saved-change check: Reopen action-list-rule-rationale-v1, confirm the current-instruction link and the links to owner/deadline comparisons, then follow the new inventory pointer. Preserve the current-version route in learning-loop-v1.

Portability status: This inventory identifies which records need a move test. Chapter 9 performs a small test; listing a readable format here is not evidence that a complete working set has already been moved.

Worked rationale, with later updates

Record: action-list-rule-rationale-v1.

Role: Explain the evidence boundary and connect its history. This record does not issue a competing task instruction. The specimens below are authored teaching material; readers must retain their own actual retrieval and write-check results.

Initial Chapter 8 rationale: An agreement can exist without an assigned owner. Removing every unassigned item would hide agreed work; inventing an owner would misrepresent the notes. The connection-map example supplies the rejected completeness proposal and its repair. Keep the agreement and show the missing assignment.

The same source boundary applies to timing. Run-01 contains an unsupported Wednesday date. Its migration diagnosis shows that an obsolete deadline suggestion remained in an intermediate instruction. The correction restores the existing requirement rather than discovering a new principle. Run-02 preserves “soon” and leaves the precise date unresolved.

Authority at the Chapter 8 point in the story: The existing learning-loop entry selects v2. The rationale explains that instruction and its supporting examples.

Later update after Chapter 11: The distillation record adds reviewed handling for contradictory deadlines with no established supersession. Preserve the shared action and owner, retain both timing claims, and seek clarification. The same logical current-version route now selects instructions-v3. The literal v3 instruction governs current main-case work; the v2 specimen remains historical. This is an explicit later addition to the living artifact, not a claim that Chapter 8 already performed Chapter 11’s exercise.

Scope and limit: These records support source-faithful representation in the fictional workshop-design practice. They do not authorize assigning work, contacting participants, selecting an unresolved date, or claiming customer/learner outcomes.

Review trigger: A changed task instruction, corrected source, or a new case that reveals an omission. Revisit the explanation and links affected by that change; retain one current-instruction route.

Acceptance criteria

One task and its necessary records are identified.
Retrieval questions concern the work, rather than only filenames.
The current instruction can be distinguished from history and rejected proposals.
At least one consequential rationale can be followed to relevant support.
Retrieval and correct use have separate recorded outcomes.
A saved change is reopened and its relevant links are checked.
The inventory distinguishes unaided understanding, retrieved detail, and missing evidence.
Results state their limits; one synthetic check is not a reliability rate.

Common failure and repair

Failure	Repair
A current instruction is findable, but its reason requires reconstructing several conversations.	Add a concise linked rationale, keeping one authority route for the instruction.
Search returns an older proposal without making its rejection clear.	Mark its status where it appears and connect it to the current decision.
A fresh output cites the rule but violates it.	Inspect the supplied working set and the output; identify the specific conflict or error before adding more text.
Three summaries of one paper are treated as three sources.	Link to the inspected source and label derived summaries; preserve the claim’s limits.
The inventory contains the answer “somewhere,” with no usable location.	Add a resolvable location or mark the record missing.
A retrieval result is used to claim knowledge of a customer need.	Check whether such evidence exists. Keep the claim untested when it does not.
The new rationale becomes a second instruction with different wording.	Restore one current instruction and let the rationale explain it through links.