constraint-identification

Business

Find blockers and showstoppers using TOC, TRIZ contradiction analysis, and Pre-mortem techniques.

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Constraint Identification

Purpose: Systematically discover what could prevent a candidate from being implemented. Uses Theory of Constraints to find bottlenecks, TRIZ to surface contradictions, and Pre-mortem to anticipate failures before they occur.

When to use:

A candidate looks promising but you need to stress-test its viability
Stakeholders want to know what could go wrong before committing
You need a structured inventory of blockers with severity and removability assessments

Budget

Metric	Target
Constraints identified	>= 3 per candidate
Hard constraints classified	>= 1
Removal paths designed	>= 1 per removable constraint

State Ledger

Key	Type	Description
candidate	object	The candidate under assessment
constraints[]	array	All identified constraints
hard_constraints[]	array	Non-negotiable blockers
soft_constraints[]	array	Constraints that can be worked around
assumptions[]	array	Unvalidated beliefs that may become constraints
removal_paths{}	map	Constraint -> removal path mapping

Available Tactics

Tactic	When
constraint-drilling	Default — full constraint discovery, classification, and removal path design

Available SOPs

SOP	Purpose
constraint-identification-sop	Discover constraints
constraint-classification	Sort into hard/soft/assumptions
removability-assessment	Score how removable each constraint is
removal-path	Design steps to remove a constraint

Execution Guidance

Deploy constraint-identification-sop to discover all constraints using TOC, TRIZ, and Pre-mortem
Feed discovered constraints to constraint-classification to sort them
For each non-trivial constraint, run removability-assessment
For constraints with removability score > 0.3, design removal-path
Aggregate findings into state ledger

Output Format

constraint_analysis:
  candidate: <name>
  total_constraints: N
  hard_constraints:
    - {constraint, severity, rationale}
  soft_constraints:
    - {constraint, severity, workaround_sketch}
  assumptions:
    - {assumption, risk_if_false, validation_method}
  removal_paths:
    - {constraint, removability: 0.X, steps: [...], timeline, resources}
  showstopper_verdict: <yes/no>
  showstopper_reason: <if yes>

Available Tactics

Optional, no fixed order; the final leaf is always a sop.

Tactic	When to use
constraint-drilling	Identify constraints, classify them by type and severity, assess removability, and design removal paths for removable constraints.