Validate
Counterfactual Reasoning
Asking whether a specific change would have altered an outcome, step by step.
What is Counterfactual Reasoning?
Asking whether a specific change would have altered an outcome, step by step.
What you learn
Ask which change would actually have altered the outcome.
When it helps
you’re reviewing an incident and choosing which fix to make.
Use it at work
- Write what happened, step by step.
- For each proposed fix, replay the steps with the fix in place.
- Ask whether the outcome would change, and why.
- Keep the fixes that would have changed it.
Your output
In your next incident review, test each proposed fix: step by step, would it have changed the outcome?
Watch for
Blaming the last or most visible event instead of testing each possible change.
Related practices
Sources
- Causality, Chapter 1: Introduction to Probabilities, Graphs, and Causal Models
- The Field Guide to Understanding Human Error
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