--- name: learning-log description: "Whether a hypothesis already circulating has actually been tested, or is still just an assumption — a fixed set of hypotheses, a flat list of real tests run against them, and every hypothesis nobody's tested yet flagged plainly, alongside every test that recommends revising or killing the idea. Use when: Several hypotheses or ideas are circulating about what would actually improve something, and you want an honest record of which have real tests behind them. A test has already run and produced a real result, and you want to record what it actually recommends — keep, revise, or kill — rather than letting a promising-sounding result stand in for a clear verdict. Not for: You don't have a real hypothesis to test yet — this log tracks tests against hypotheses already named, it doesn't generate new ones. The idea is genuinely trivial or reversible with no real cost to just trying it — the overhead of a formal test isn't worth it yet." --- # Learning log Whether a hypothesis already circulating has actually been tested, or is still just an assumption — a fixed set of hypotheses, a flat list of real tests run against them, and every hypothesis nobody's tested yet flagged plainly, alongside every test that recommends revising or killing the idea. Family: Experimentation · Format: .xlsx · Domain: core ## What it is A learning log is a real, checkable answer to 'have we actually tested that, or are we just assuming it' — a fixed set of hypotheses, and for each one, the real tests actually run against it (or the lack of any). It's the same 'management by fact, not opinion' discipline an evidence register runs on claims already circulating, pointed instead at ideas waiting to be tried: a hypothesis with no test logged is named directly as untested, and a test's own recommendation — keep, revise, or kill — is recorded honestly rather than treated as a formality once a test happens to run. ## When to use it Use it when: - Several hypotheses or ideas are circulating about what would actually improve something, and you want an honest record of which have real tests behind them. - A test has already run and produced a real result, and you want to record what it actually recommends — keep, revise, or kill — rather than letting a promising-sounding result stand in for a clear verdict. - You want to know which hypotheses have never been tested at all, not just which ones feel intuitively right. Not when: - You don't have a real hypothesis to test yet — this log tracks tests against hypotheses already named, it doesn't generate new ones. - The idea is genuinely trivial or reversible with no real cost to just trying it — the overhead of a formal test isn't worth it yet. ## How to fill it in - **scopeNotes** — What set of hypotheses does this log cover? - **hypotheses** — List every hypothesis or idea you want tracked, even ones you haven't tested yet. - **tests** — For each test: which hypothesis it relates to, the test type, what actually happened, and your real recommendation — keep, revise, or kill — your own facts, never guessed. - **narrative** — Drafted from the log's own computed coverage. ## What good looks like The example below tests two hypotheses already circulating about Line 2's changeover performance — including the exact sequencing-rule claim the attribution reality check found unverified and the evidence register logged as unproven — with a third hypothesis honestly left untested, continuing the evidence register's own flagged gap. Full worked example, on-screen and as a downloadable .xlsx: https://www.katafacts.com/katas/learning-log ## Common mistakes - **Treating a promising-sounding result as an automatic 'keep' without a real recommendation.** — A result can be real and still be too small, too narrow, or too confounded to fully validate a hypothesis — the recommendation should name that honestly (often 'revise') rather than rounding a partial result up to a clean pass. - **Leaving a hypothesis off the log because you're confident it hasn't been tested.** — An unlisted hypothesis can't be flagged as untested — naming it and letting it show up with zero tests is exactly how this tool surfaces the gap plainly instead of hiding it by omission. - **Running a test but never recording what it actually recommends.** — A test with a result but no recommendation leaves the real decision — keep, revise, or kill — unmade, which is the entire point of running the test in the first place. ## What it connects to Upstream: - **Evidence register** (`evidence-register`) — A claim the evidence register logs as unverified is often exactly the hypothesis this log should go test properly, instead of leaving it to stand as an assumption. Downstream: - **A3 problem solving** (`a3`) — A test that recommends 'kill' on a countermeasure hypothesis is a direct signal an A3's own effect-confirmation plan should act on, not quietly ignore. - **Improvement Kata storyboard** (`improvement-kata-storyboard`) — The learning log tracks hypotheses across many efforts; the step-by-step experiments toward one target condition, each with its prediction written first, live on an Improvement Kata storyboard. ## Where AI helps Judgement — stays with you: - Deciding whether a result actually supports keep, revise, or kill - Deciding which untested hypothesis to prioritize next Analysis — AI helps: - Tightening a test description from rough notes into a specific, checkable statement - Drafting the narrative from the log's own computed coverage Drudgery — automated: - Identifying which hypotheses have no tests logged - Identifying which logged tests recommend revise or kill - Exporting to xlsx in the house format --- Learning log is licensed [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Attribution: Katafacts (katafacts.com). ## Using this skill Apply this method as part of whatever broader task, instructions, or deliverable you're already working on -- it's a method to use, not a standalone conversation to start. There is no generation tool for this catalogue yet, so draft the artifact's actual content yourself, following the fields above, the same way a person filling this out by hand would. The canonical guide page and a downloadable worked example (.xlsx) are at https://www.katafacts.com/katas/learning-log.