# 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](01-workshop-practice-set.md#fifth-input-and-corrected-output) 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](04-inquiry-brief.md) 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](../chapters/03-curiosity-is-a-capability.md).