A story track · bring data to play it
Post-intervention review (the follow-up every story above earns)
The Receipt
We acted. Did it work? — answered with attribution honesty. This is the track — the ordered card-slots this story needs, laid out as a hypothesis before any data exists. Bring data and the engine confirms each slot, or hands the story off down a branch.
the story · before any data
the hero
A sponsor who funded the fix and stood behind it — wants a straight answer: did it work?.
the villain
Victory theater — the post-intervention review that declares success by enthusiasm
the problem, felt at three levels
- External · The number moved — but so did the market, the season, and three other initiatives.
- Internal · The discomfort of half-believing your own success story.
- Philosophical · An organization that can't tell whether its fixes work will keep paying for the ones that don't.
the plan
- 1Replay the bet as stated (no quiet goalpost moves)
- 2Test the delta past the cutoff
- 3Convict or exonerate the rivals — then decide: scale, adjust, or stop
if nothing changes
Skip the receipt and every future budget argument is theology: the fixes that work starve while the ones with better stories feast.
success
A decision — scale, adjust, or stop — with caveats attached and credibility banked.
From a company that funds stories about its fixes — to one whose fixes earn their funding.
the screenplay · the sequence of scenes it needs
Act I — The World
what we did, what we expectedTHE REASSURANCE
the prior story's BET, replayed
What was the bet, on the record?
fills with
a computed step (calculator / decision) — not a single card
the handle · Hold ourselves to the stated target.
Act II — The Forces
the before/after— SO —
THE RECEIPT
the after
Did the number move past the cutoff?
fills with
or any card of form: falling · rising · step_change
the handle · The trend bent or it didn't — say which.
— BUT —
THE EXONERATION
rival explanations, surfaced not buried
What else could explain it?
fills with
a computed step (calculator / decision) — not a single card
the handle · Claim only what survives the rivals.
Act III — The Choice
double down, adjust, or stop— WHICH MEANS —
THE BET
the continuation decision
Scale it, fix it, or end it?
fills with
a computed step (calculator / decision) — not a single card
the handle · Receipts fund the next bet.
the resolution · what this story exists to produce
Scale / adjust / stop — decided on evidence, with the attribution caveats attached.
What next? What else?
More certainty is priced, not promised — the next steps, each a known cost against the decision:
- ↗ comparison-group design for the next intervention
- ↗ another period of post data
- ↗ pre-register the next bet's target
what it needs to be told
told differently by altitude
exec · manager · analyst variants forthcoming
provenance · the framework (the accountability beat every engagement should end with)
The driving question: Did the intervention move the number — and can we honestly say it was us?
One story from the database — assembled from the shared deck of scenes. Browse the stories · browse the deck · bring your own data.