A one-page comparison worth arguing with
Use this as a working page for a caching or context-reuse proposal. The point is to expose the comparison, including what remains unknown.
The intended result
Describe what the recipient needs completed. Include the correctness, freshness, access, and delivery conditions that matter to this task.
Our acceptable finish is:
Write it before filling in favorable numbers.
The two routes
| Account | Fresh route | Reuse route |
|---|---|---|
| Work included | What must be acquired, produced, checked, and delivered? | What must be retrieved, checked, adapted, renewed, and delivered? |
| Population and window | Which requests and conditions? | The same population and window, or an explicit difference |
| Resource cost | What is measured, estimated, or unknown? | The same units, with overlapping categories removed |
| Human work | Who validates, interprets, or repairs? | Who validates, interprets, or repairs? |
| Failure exposure | What can go wrong and with what consequence? | What can go wrong and with what consequence? |
| Remaining uncertainty | What has not been established? | What has not been established? |
The claim
State the particular benefit the account supports: lower cash expense, freed capacity, less effort, faster usable response, or reduced exposure to a defined failure.
Do not call all of those benefits “savings” without explaining the relationship.
The counterexample
Choose one plausible condition under which the preferred route becomes less attractive. Explain how you would recognize that condition and what you would do next.
The receiving decision
What action can this comparison inform? Who needs to understand it? What would count as enough information for that action?
Read baseline, total cost, and duties. For help adapting the exercise to a team or system, explore team learning and systems review.
An account that invites a useful objection is already more informative than an unexplained favorable percentage.