22 Reading a document someone wrote with a model

What people usually ask

Here is a test scope from a supplier; give me a cost estimate.

What comes back

An estimate built on round targets nobody decided, with results the scope already claims before any test has run, and all of it carried into the price.

Ask this instead

Attached is scope.pdf, a test scope a supplier sent. Do not estimate anything.

Go through the document and pull out every number: sample counts, durations, temperatures, targets, percentages. Put each in a table with the number, where it appears (section and page), and one of four labels:
- measured: the document says how it was measured
- decided: the document says who chose it and why
- assumed: the document uses it with no source
- unstated: the number is needed for the work and never appears
Then list the questions to send back, one per line, in this order: what the test is meant to find out; where each assumed number came from; what each decided number was decided against; which unstated numbers they will supply.
Stop after the questions. No estimate, no opinion on whether the scope is good.

Attach: the scope document.

Why it works: a document drafted with a model reads as finished, and sorting its numbers shows how much of it nobody ever decided.