Structured Inquiry & Experimental Design

Primes about deliberately structuring investigation or design to isolate causes and generate options, spanning experimental and factorial design, blocking, the comparative method, Delphi consensus-building, prototyping, and divergence-convergence cycles.

7 primes in this family — primes that sit near one another in abstraction space (k-means over structural-signature embeddings). Each is shown with its short description.

• Blocking (In Experimental Design) — Group similar units.
• Comparative Method — Systematically juxtaposing selected cases so that their similarities and differences do the causal-inference work that controlled experiments cannot.
• Delphi Method — Expert consensus iteration.
• Design Prototyping — Early models for testing.
• Divergence-Convergence in the Design Process — Expand then refine ideas.
• Experimental Design — Structuring an investigation through deliberate intervention, controlled assignment, and measurement so that causation can be distinguished from mere correlation and confounding.
• Factorial Design — Multiple variables tested together.