Field Conversation Kit

Use these prompts to gather evidence and facilitate a bounded decision without leading the operator, turning conflict into blame, or implying authority you do not have. Adapt the language to the customer and confidentiality boundary.

1. Find the process knower

Outreach:

I am trying to understand one recent case as it actually moved through the workflow—not evaluate the person doing it or redesign it in the meeting. Who can reconstruct a routine case and an exception from the source systems? We will confirm what may be retained before recording evidence.

Validate the role:

• Which part of the case do you personally perform or own?
• What do you decide, and who receives the result?
• Who handles the exception you cannot resolve?
• Which policy or system can override your usual practice?
• Who may approve a change to this workflow?

Do not infer sponsor, process-knower, operating-owner, policy-owner, or disposition- authority roles from title alone.

2. Agree the observation boundary

Before opening a case, confirm:

• purpose and exact workflow slice;
• permitted sources and restricted fields;
• whether notes, screenshots, identifiers, or passages may be retained;
• who may review the record;
• how the operator can correct your interpretation;
• whether the session is observation, assertion gathering, or a design review.

Suggested opening:

Please choose a recent case you can reconstruct from permitted evidence. I will ask what arrived, what you inspected, what decision you made, and what happened next. If the case is unusual, tell me why; I will not treat one case as frequency evidence.

3. Reconstruct one case without leading

Ask in this order:

1. What triggered the work?
2. What was the first decision you had to make?
3. Which exact source changed or confirmed that decision?
4. What did the system suggest, require, or prevent?
5. What did you change manually, and why?
6. Where was the result recorded?
7. How did you know the action completed?
8. What exception or workaround would make this path different?
9. Who can resolve that exception?
10. Which part of my readback is wrong or incomplete?

Avoid:

• “Would automation save time?”
• “Is this always the process?”
• “The policy allows this, right?”
• “Could the agent just handle the exception?”

These questions embed a solution, invite unsupported frequency, or ask the wrong person to grant authority.

4. Read back the field view

I observed [case and scope]. The operator inspected [sources], decided [decision], performed [action], and verified [readback]. This proves occurrence in this case, not frequency or permission. [Policy/test/assertion] separately states [claim]. The material unknown is [unknown]. The smallest next move is [validate person / observe case / resolve conflict], owned by [owner or unknown].

Ask the operator to correct the path and evidence limitation before circulation.

5. Surface a contradiction without blame

Neutral framing:

We have two bounded claims that cannot both define the current delivery boundary. The inherited brief states [quoted claim and source]. The field evidence states [quoted claim and source]. This affects [scope, authority, economics, evaluation, or acceptance]. It does not establish that either stakeholder acted improperly. We need a scoped disposition from [authority].

Do not write “the sponsor was wrong” or “operations refuses the design.” Keep the claim, evidence class, applicability, and authority visible.

6. Run the reframe decision meeting

Thirty-minute agenda:

1. Inherited claim — 4 min: exact passage, revision, and dependent outputs.
2. Contesting evidence — 6 min: exact passage, evidence class, scope, limitation.
3. Delivery consequence — 4 min: what becomes unsafe, uneconomic, or unprovable.
4. Proposed boundary — 5 min: included work, exclusions, safe fallback.
5. Authority check — 3 min: who can decide which dimension and on what basis.
6. Disposition — 5 min: continue discovery, bounded kickoff, defer, stop, or a narrower authorized variant.
7. Readback — 3 min: unchanged work, affected outputs, owner, date, review trigger.

Decision close:

I heard [actor], acting under [authority basis], decide [disposition] for [scope] on [date]. The safe fallback remains [fallback]. We will update only [dependent objects] and preserve prior revisions. [Unchanged objects] remain current. The next review occurs when [condition].

If the authority basis is missing or contested, record no disposition. Preserve the proposal and make authority validation the next move.

7. Practice drill — sponsor and operator conflict

Use three roles: sponsor, operator, and FDE. Give the sponsor the inherited outcome and the operator the observed workaround or policy constraint. Do not let either participant read the other's private prompt before the conversation.

The FDE has twelve minutes to:

1. quote each bounded claim without calling either person wrong;
2. identify the evidence class and limitation on both sides;
3. distinguish outcome authority, workflow knowledge, policy authority, and delivery disposition;
4. propose a safe fallback and one exact decision request; and
5. close with no disposition if the required authority is absent.

Observer rubric:

• Questions do not embed automation, frequency, permission, or blame.
• The readback separates observation, assertion, policy, and interpretation.
• The proposal narrows only the contested boundary and preserves the inherited claim.
• The close names unchanged work, affected objects, owner, evidence needed, and next review condition.

8. Practice drill — denied access or missing authority

Use two roles: process knower and FDE. The process knower declines access to the requested case, or explains that the only available case is unrepresentative. In a second round, the meeting attendees cannot establish who may authorize a boundary change.

The FDE has eight minutes to:

1. confirm the reason and evidence-handling limit without pressuring the operator;
2. ask for the smallest permitted substitute: a redacted passage, system query, sanitized reconstruction, or a different authorized observer;
3. mark frequency, permission, and applicability as unknown when the substitute does not prove them;
4. preserve the open proposal without recording a fictional disposition; and
5. route one next move with an owner or explicitly state that ownership is unknown.

Observer rubric:

• Declined access remains visible and is not treated as negative evidence.
• No confidential passage, screenshot, identifier, or recording is retained outside the agreed boundary.
• The FDE does not reward urgency by inventing authority or silently weakening the evidence standard.
• The close is useful even when the defensible result is continued discovery.

9. Close the field loop

• Send the source-linked readback, not a polished narrative that removes uncertainty.
• Separate observation corrections from scope approval.
• Name the next move, owner, due date, and evidence expected.
• Record declined access, disagreement, deferral, and stopped work.
• Do not retain restricted evidence beyond the agreed purpose.