FieldP-13 · What you are carrying in
Key Assumptions Check
Write the load-bearing beliefs before collection starts. Mark which ones, if wrong, would collapse the case.
Step 1
List the Starting Facts
Each one tagged: Observed, Corroborated, Inferred, Hypothesized, or Unknown. Nothing inferred is recorded as observed.
Step 2
List the Assumptions Separately
What you are carrying in, including the ones that feel like common sense.
Step 3
Mark the Load-Bearing Ones
If this were false, would the case still stand? Those are the ones you test first.
Step 4
Write a Stop Condition
What evidence would make you drop an assumption rather than explain it away.
Step 5
Revisit After Collection
Assumptions that survived contact with evidence stay. The rest get demoted in the file, not in memory.
How It Fails
Starting from the conclusion. The worked presumption case shows how a prior belief hardened into a presumption and moved the burden of proof.