Tool 24 of 32 · about an hour

Savability Test

The honest answer to the biggest question, decided by hard conditions first. Four outcomes, keep going, change direction, wait, or wind down, and every outcome ships with its plan.

On decision day, assembled from the outputs of the earlier tools, never from impressions, and never from fresh fieldwork. If a verdict needs new evidence, the upstream tools were skipped.

What it is for

To give the honest answer to whether the business can be saved, as one of four outcomes, each with its plan, decided by hard conditions first and direction last.

The failure it catches

Two opposite mistakes. Quitting too early while a fix was still available. And holding on past the point where anyone can choose, until reality decides on the worst terms. Both come from the same missing thing: a definition of failure that does not require standing at the finish line to check.

Why it works

Hard conditions first, any one of them deciding on its own, then direction only for survivors, keeps a wait from being granted before runway, seat and market have been checked. Commitment is recorded beside the verdict, never inside it, so an unsigned page cannot hide the answer.

How to run it

1. Check the hard conditions first, from the earlier tools, never from impressions. Any one of them decides on its own.
2. Runway: is the decision deadline inside the window, from the Runway Trace.
3. Seat: is there a seat the business cannot run without and cannot re-fill, from the Role-Deliverable Differential. Where that test's delivery cycle must run past decision day, do not delay the verdict. Set the seat's line in the sand on decision day: written success and failure, a date, and next steps pre-agreed for both readings. The result on that date feeds a re-grade.
4. Market, for companies still searching for one, and wherever the Value-Source Audit found no current value engine: is the market actually there, from Market Reality, or at least a nameable trigger worth waiting for.
5. Direction last, and only for a business that passed everything above. Does the diagnosis root demand a different path, a priced change of who does what included. Yes is change direction. No is keep going.
6. Record commitment alongside the verdict, never inside it. Whether failure is defined before the finish line, and whether the hard decisions are signed, gets written down as its own dated state. A missing definition or an unsigned page is never a wait. The verdict the evidence supports arrives regardless.
7. Every re-entry condition on a wait carries a dated window. A re-grade is a fresh run of these conditions on the evidence as it stands that day, and the verdict it produces replaces the old one.

How to read the result

Any hard condition failing is terminal on its own. Keep going: the hard conditions cleared and the root backs the current path. Ships with the 90-day plan that fixes the response. Change direction: the hard conditions cleared and the root demands a different path, a priced seat change included. The business is savable, not as arranged. Ships with the 90-day plan built around the change. Wait: the hard conditions cleared but the evidence cannot support proceeding now, canonically a market that is not ready but has a nameable trigger. Ships with the re-entry conditions in writing, each with its dated window, exactly what has to become true, the numbers that tell you when to move, and the dates that stop the waiting from becoming indefinite. Wind down: past the window, or a seat that cannot be re-seated with no arrangement that works without it, or a market not ready with no nameable trigger. Ships with the cleanest possible landing: what is recoverable, in what order, and how to protect the people and assets that matter. There is no waiting without runway, no signature saves a dead seat, and no commitment saves a market with no trigger.

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