Individual hypotheses — specific, testable ways to attack a bottleneck.
A play is a single hypothesis: a specific way to attack a bottleneck. Plays sit at the canopy of the tree because that is where the most experimentation, variation and learning happens.
Many plays may be tried; few will graduate. That is the point.
Each Play has a clear structure: an Intervention (what we will do), an Expected Outcome (the falsifiable prediction), Test Boundaries (scope, cohort, duration), and an Abort Condition (when to stop immediately). Plays run in parallel within a Playlist, and their results are the raw evidence that feeds the Portfolio Decision Forum.
The discipline at this level is designing Plays that produce clear signal quickly — not building complete solutions. A Play should be small enough to learn from in days, not weeks.
Key principles
- A Play is a single, falsifiable hypothesis.
- Every Play has an Abort condition.
- Continuous Stop in the Cell on Abort trip.
- Forum decides Scale · Deepen · Pivot · Stop.