METHOD / HOW THE WORK HAPPENS
Four states. One thing made real.
Every engagement starts with a product bet: many possible futures, one thing worth making real. The work moves through four states. Possibilities stay open long enough to learn, context compounds into shared memory, decisions collapse into a buildable direction, and the product becomes something your team can run.
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01
Superposition
The bet is still plural. We map users, risks, constraints, and possible paths before the team commits to the wrong shape.
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02
Accretion
Context starts to compound. Research, critique, prototypes, and technical constraints become shared product memory.
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03
Collapse
The direction sharpens. Tradeoffs land, the spec tightens, and Product, Design, and Engineering align around one buildable path.
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04
Actuality
The path becomes real software: working flows, shipped code, and a project brain the team can run, revisit, and extend.
HOW THE WORK MOVES
The product moves; the reasoning stays.
Work begins with intent and leaves as a product iteration. Along the way, the reasoning is compressed into a project brain, the product’s working memory: decisions, constraints, tradeoffs, specs, and next moves your team can keep building from. Progress compounds instead of resetting, so the work can pause, resume, change hands, or continue with agents without losing the thread.
AI is infrastructure. The product is still the product. The durable thing is the reasoning behind what gets built.
DELIVERABLE / WHAT YOU LEAVE WITH
You leave with a project brain.
The product’s working memory, captured in plain text.
The project brain is not a deck, a design file, or a transcript of the work. It is the product’s working memory: compressed reasoning across decisions, alternatives, constraints, specs, research, implementation notes, and product logic.
By the end, Product, Design, and Engineering share one source of reasoning your team can keep building from. People can read it. Agents can use it. No platform dependency, no lock-in. When the engagement ends, the product keeps moving because the memory of the work comes with it.
SAMPLE PROJECT BRAIN EXCERPT
# decision-log.md — Onboarding V1.2 ## 2026-05-14 · COLLAPSE · ONBOARDING-SHAPE Decision Ship onboarding as one progressive screen, not a four-step wizard. Why In testing, drop-off clustered at step transitions. A single screen keeps context visible and lets returning users skip what they already know. Collapsed from - four-step wizard - modal checklist - email drip sequence Constraint Must work before account creation; nothing is persisted pre-signup. Next move Instrument field-level focus to confirm the skip path before V1.3.