Section 05 · tools
Ten artefacts, one job each.
The set runs the journey from first bet to final recommendation: shaping, briefing, testing, and evidencing an initiative. Each one is a downloadable template, pre-built with its table structure and confidence dropdowns.
How to use them
Click any artefact to download its .xlsx template. Open in Excel, Google Sheets, or Numbers, save your own copy, and fill it in. Confidence, risk, and decision fields are pre-set as dropdowns.
Before a team is engaged
Shaping the bet.
IXD Bet Brief
The quality gate completed before a team is engaged for a 6-week cycle. Sixteen tabs covering the full brief: bet summary and context, starting-point classification, current-state metrics and understanding, stakeholders, existing data, known assumptions, knowledge gaps, scope, constraints, decision intent, recommended next practice, and a readiness checklist.
Starting Point Classification
A short decision table that names whether you are starting with a problem, opportunity, pre-defined solution, or imported model, then routes you to the right next practice.
Understanding before solutioning
Diagnosing the current state.
Current-State Assumption Register
Used when starting from a problem, opportunity, or ambiguous current state. Builds confidence in what is happening today before solutioning, across the nine current-state categories.
Solution Evidence Facets
Used when a solution, intervention, tool, process change, or operating model is being explored. Tracks each of the five facets with current answer, evidence, confidence, critical gap, and next evidence needed.
The working core
Tracking assumptions and evidence.
Full Assumptions Register
The working table for tracking assumptions end to end: type, category, the assumption, why it matters, evidence, confidence, risk, critical flag, learning question, test method, signals, finding, insight, decision, and owner.
Learning Cycle Template
One assumption or question per cycle: why it matters, target confidence and data required, research methods, what right and wrong look like, resources and ownership, what you found, and the next thing to learn.
Initiative Snapshot
A one-page evidence-led story of the initiative as it develops: what it is, why it matters, who is affected, the change hypothesis, and where it sits now, with a critical assumptions register attached.
Running and closing a cycle
The 6-week cycle and its readout.
6-Week Cycle Learning Brief
Co-created with the sponsor in the warm-up. Seven tabs: context and learning intent, the critical assumptions for the cycle, stop and pivot signals, what is out of scope, the stakeholder engagement required, stakeholder inputs, and supporting artefacts.
Open Studio Framework
The end-of-cycle readout. Moves from why the initiative matters, through the critical assumptions tested, to the recommendation and ask: Continue, Pivot, or Stop, with an evidence-based rationale.
Coaching Review Checklist
A manager's quality check before a brief or readout goes to a sponsor: clear intent, explicit decision, critical assumptions limited, confidence assigned to assumptions, behavioural evidence, and a specific ask.
Table interpretation rules
How to read the artefacts.
- Filled cells represent current working content. Blank cells represent gaps, unresolved questions, or fields still to be completed.
- Confidence should only be inferred when explicitly stated. Do not assume a blank confidence cell means Assumed unless the row is clearly an untested assumption.
- Stakeholder opinion is useful but not proof. Existing metrics support Indicated confidence unless they show observed behaviour in realistic conditions.
- A pilot or prototype only moves confidence to Demonstrated if actual behaviour was observed in a realistic operating context.
- Treat visual proximity as dependency only where connectors or labels say so. Sticky notes are prompts, not decisions, unless labelled as decisions.