L · Recipe collection
Quick Recipes
Try a focused change to a repeating pattern. Explore examples and alternative approaches.
Choose a recipe in the practical Guide →Choose a Quick Recipe
- Loop in ThreeSeveral problems keep appearing together, and you suspect they feed each other. Sketch three changing quantities and test whether a consequence really returns to affect the next turn.
- One More TurnAn action solves today’s problem, but the same situation will return. Ask what this action leaves behind and how that changes the next occurrence before you repeat it.
- Snowball or Thermostat?Something has moved away from its usual level. Trace whether that change feeds further change in the same direction or activates a response that pushes back.
- Bathtub TestSomething keeps piling up or running down despite effort. Name the quantity that persists, what enters it, and what leaves it over the same period.
- Delay DetectiveYou are about to repeat a correction or judge its result. First check how long its consequence should take to arrive and what is already in motion.
- Fix That FeedsThe same rescue keeps working for today and becoming necessary tomorrow. Check whether relief is reducing the skill, capacity, or investment that could eventually remove its need.
- Bottleneck WalkMore work starts, yet finished results barely rise. Follow one item through the process and find where waiting accumulates before spending effort on another improvement.
- Ceiling HuntYou want more of what has been working. Before increasing volume, ask which resource, capacity, trust, or permission would limit the next gain and when it would bind.
- Yo-Yo CheckThe process swings from too much to too little, and each correction feels justified. Check whether large responses are acting on old information while earlier corrections are still arriving.
- Winner Gets FuelThe same person, project, or idea keeps winning resources and then winning again. Check how much the apparent advantage depends on the opportunities that earlier success attracted.
- Arms-Race MirrorEach side says it is only responding, yet both keep escalating. Describe how each protective action could become the other side’s trigger, then check that account against actual episodes.
- Scoreboard HijackThe number looks better, but the result you care about may not. Compare the rewarded proxy with an independent observation of the real outcome and trace what the reward makes people repeat.
- Goalpost DriftWhat once counted as acceptable has quietly changed. Retrieve the earlier standard, compare it with today’s operating rule, and distinguish an endorsed revision from unchosen normalization.
- Policy BoomerangA reasonable rule seemed to work, then people adapted and the original problem returned. Trace what the rule makes worthwhile and how those responses may later defeat its purpose.
- Break One ArrowSeveral connected changes could explain a recurring problem. Test one specific link while keeping the surrounding conditions as comparable as practical, so the result can meaningfully update your causal picture.
- Friction FlipThe recurring action you want is awkward to start, while another is effortless. Change the steps, delay, or distance on the relevant pathway and watch what happens across turns.
- Seed the FlywheelA useful recurring activity cannot generate its own next turn yet. Supply bounded early support, then deliberately test whether the activity’s ordinary returns can sustain it when that support fades.
- Shorten the EchoAccurate feedback arrives after you have repeated the same mistake several times. Move a valid signal early enough to influence the next attempt while preserving checks on the real outcome.
- Brake, Reserve, or CapA process is volatile or fragile, but “make it stable” does not identify the change. Compare a weaker response, a stored buffer, and a hard response limit against the actual failure.Expand branch →
- Four Steering KnobsRepeated effort is missing the intended result. Inspect the target, the signal people see, the response rule, and the reward before deciding which part of the process needs repair.Expand branch →