The encyclopedia

Asks whether the thing you named is an end you actually care about, or just something easy to count. Trace it upward: if you hit it perfectly and still feel nothing changed, you named an activity, a borrowed metric, or a stand-in.

Names the people affected and the values pulling against each other, then asks whether a stated rule decides the tie, who holds that authority, and whether the clashes you cannot settle get raised out loud instead of buried in a blended compromise.

Ask whether progress will actually show up in observable life. You need four kinds of signal, not one number: a lagging result, an early advance, a counter-signal that catches damage, and a raw reality check. Then audit how each could be gamed.

Write down the limits the goal must respect: lines you will not cross, methods that are off the table, minimums that must hold, ceilings and budgets you cannot exceed, and harms to other people the pursuit might cause.

Checks reachability three ways: some slice of the outcome must move when you act, the target must be shaped right for the uncertainty (a band or floor or direction, not false precision), and likely futures must leave slack or a way back.

Conditions change, so this test asks whether you decided in advance when the goal gets reviewed, what evidence would force a rewrite, who holds the authority to change it, and what would trigger stopping or rolling it back.

A one-question test for telling Destination problems (what outcome counts as better, and who has the right to define or revise it) apart from System problems (who or what carries the work, through which handoffs and checks), so teams stop arguing about ownership when the real gap is an unsettled definition of success.