Guided journey
Our test results came back negative
DASH says the success criteria weren't met. The instinct is to argue the test was wrong. The discipline is to figure out where the failure actually lies — framing, design, or testing — before adjusting anything.
A negative test result is information, not a verdict. The first reflex — "the test was wrong" — sometimes turns out to be true, but skipping straight to that conclusion is how teams convince themselves their framing is fine when it isn't.
The work below is diagnostic. Before you adjust anything, figure out which of the three possible failure locations the result points to. Each one leads to a different next step. Skipping the diagnosis costs more iterations than doing it.
Steps
Restate the success criteria the test was measuring against
Go back to the Research synthesis. Were the criteria measurable? Capability-focused? Did the test scenarios actually exercise them? A bad result against vague criteria is a finding about the criteria, not the artefact.
Diagnose where the failure lies
Three possibilities. Framing — the team was building the wrong thing. Design — the build doesn't yet match what was specified. Testing — the test didn't measure what mattered, or used the wrong sample. Each path leads somewhere different. Don't skip this step.
If testing was wrong — redesign the test
Wrong participants, wrong scenarios, prototype too thin to test, success criteria not measurable. Generate a new test plan with the fixes in place; don't change the artefact based on a bad measurement.
If design was wrong — iterate
Take the specific findings into the next Design pass. The Test ↔ Design loop is supposed to run at high cadence; one negative result isn't a crisis, it's expected. Iterate the prototype, then test again.
If framing was wrong — re-engage Research
This is the outer-loop re-trigger. Costs the team weeks. Do it when test evidence exceeds the threshold for 'the problem framing itself has shifted' — not when one scenario underperforms.
Update the source artefact
Whatever the diagnosis, write what was learned into the PRD or operational scenario. The Pipeline accumulates knowledge through artefacts, not through tribal memory.