Interrogating the Critical Details

• Targeting. Who are the recipients? How did we select them? Why?
• What. What are the specific resources we are bringing in? Why?
• Staffing. Who are our staff? How did we hire them? Why? Why did we hire these specific people? Why?
• Partnering. Who are our partners? How did we select them? Why? Why did we choose to partner with these specific organizations? Why?
• Working with Authorities. How are we interacting and engaging with local authorities? Why?
• How. How are we doing the work? Why?

Taking the “why?” question seriously pushes us to a greater understanding of the assumptions underlying the way we work. Ask “why?” more than once about each answer to get to the root of why we have made a decision.

Interrogating the Critical Details for who is excluded

We have limited resources and cannot do everything with everybody. How have we made the decisions to exclude some people or resources or modes of work? On the second pass through these six categories, ask who is excluded.

• Targeting. Who is excluded from being a recipient? Why?
• What. What resources are we not bringing in (that could accomplish the same goals)? Why?
• Staffing. Who was not hired? Why?
• Partnering. Which organizations did we not partner with? Why?
• Working with Authorities. Are there local authorities we are not engaged with? Why?
• How. What ways of doing the work have we chosen to not do (that could accomplish the same goals)? Why?

Can you explain the reason for a decision to someone who asks?

[See the charts to the right: Checklist for Critical Detail Mapping and Interrogating the Six Critical Details]

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Related Topics
Criteria Matter
Critical Detail Mapping with the Seven Elements of Circumstance
Mapping with the Constraints Box
Two Methods of Critical Detail Mapping
Critical Detail Mapping