State the claim your pitch depends on
Choose the strongest claim behind the recommendation. It may concern customer behavior, a communication mechanism or an operating capability. Make the claim narrow enough that a contrary example could matter.
Write what would change your mind before searching. Otherwise, it is easy to dismiss every inconvenient case as incomparable while accepting loosely related success stories. Apply the same relevance standard to both.
Search for different outcomes under similar conditions
Use the customer problem, proposed action and required capability as search dimensions. Search failure, withdrawal, reversal and unintended consequence terms where appropriate, without assuming that every negative result disproves the strategy.
Prefer cases that share an important mechanism over famous examples with only a broad category in common. Read the underlying sources and identify whether the result and the proposed explanation are separately supported.
Classify what the counterexample changes
A counterexample may invalidate the proposed mechanism, reveal a necessary condition or simply show an execution risk. Write which of these applies and why. This prevents a binary debate in which a case either proves everything or is ignored.
For an illustrative community campaign, a weak outcome might point to insufficient participant value rather than an inherently weak format. The revised proposal should address that condition explicitly instead of hiding the example.
Show the implication in the pitch
Use a compact structure: recommendation, strongest supporting evidence, credible counterexample, relevant difference and resulting safeguard. Make clear whether the recommendation changed or became more conditional.
Invite reviewers to challenge the remaining uncertainty. A pitch is stronger when its logic can survive a serious question, not when it contains only favorable examples. Keep a test or review trigger for the unresolved risk.
Use this worksheet for your decision
Copy this into your notes. Leave unknowns visible instead of filling gaps with guesses.
Key claim: Evidence that would change the decision: Comparable conditions: Counterexample and sources: Result versus explanation: Condition or risk revealed: Change to recommendation: Safeguard: Remaining test:Download the text worksheet ↓
Find evidence in the archives
Choose a supporting case and a counterexample with a different outcome. Read their sources and check whether their conditions match yours.
Cases to practice with (read and check the underlying sources):
Bring your question to the cases
Search a company or topic in the app, read the cases and ask follow-up questions to compare approaches.