Operating pattern
Test both sides before deciding
Build the strongest evidence-based case on both sides before making a consequential judgment.
Use when
The evidence supports competing explanations and an error in either direction would be material.
Operating contract
Authority, evidence, and stopping conditions.
- Job to control
- Evidence can support competing interpretations and a single investigator can lock onto the first plausible story.
- Division of work
- Separate reviewers build opposing cases. A decision owner verifies their evidence and decides without inheriting either side’s confidence.
- Control point
- Opposing cases are built separately; the adjudicator verifies their sources and owns the ruling.
- Evidence retained
- Claims and citations on both sides, contradictions, unresolved gaps, error-cost framing, and ruling or referral.
- Human ownership
- Own genuinely contestable episodes and the consequences of a substantiated finding.
- Trade-off
- Two-sided casework is deliberate extra work; it does not belong in routine decisions with a clear controlling rule.
Case sequence
- 01
Build the case for
- 02
Build the case against
- 03
Verify citations
- 04
Weigh error costs
- 05
Rule or refer
Failure watch
Control intent and failure modes.
Control intent
Confirmation bias, untested narratives, and referrals used to avoid clear decisions.
Failure modes
- 01Advocates sharing a premise
- 02Confidence standing in for evidence
- 03Referring every uncomfortable case
Applied in Cadre
Packs using this operating design.
Each pack narrows the pattern to a specific financial-services decision and names the seam that remains under human review.