Question
What does it mean that document your validation results?
Quick Answer
Recording what you tested and what happened creates a validation history.
Recording what you tested and what happened creates a validation history.
Example: After testing your schema that 'senior engineers resist process changes because they fear losing autonomy,' you write down the schema, the three conversations where you tested it, and what actually happened. Two engineers confirmed the pattern. One resisted process changes but for a completely different reason — she had seen a similar initiative fail and was protecting the team from repeating a known mistake. Without that written record, you would have remembered 'my schema was basically right.' The documentation forces you to see that it was right in two cases and wrong in one — and that the one exception contains the most useful information.
Try this: Pick a schema you tested recently — a belief you put against reality in any form (a prediction, a conversation, an experiment). Write a validation record with five fields: (1) the schema as you held it before testing, (2) what you did to test it, (3) what you expected to happen, (4) what actually happened, (5) what this means for the schema going forward. Be specific. 'It mostly worked' is not a result. Name the evidence.
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