OPERATE
Decisions
What Evidence Is Required?
A practical standard for collecting enough evidence to support a decision, close a task, or justify escalation.
Use this page to decide when evidence is sufficient for a decision, closure, or escalation.
1. Problem this page solves
Teams fail in two opposite ways:
- acting on weak evidence
- collecting more artifacts without a decision standard
This page defines evidence sufficiency as a decision-support standard, not an artifact-volume target.
2. What you should understand after reading
After this page, you should understand:
- what “evidence required” means in WitnessOps
- what makes evidence sufficient for a specific decision
- when evidence is enough to proceed, close, or escalate
- when collecting more is not the right next move
3. Mechanism-first sufficiency path
- Define the decision. What decision are you making now: proceed, close, escalate, contain?
- Define the claim. What claim must the evidence support for that decision?
- Define the minimum evidence set. Identify the smallest set of direct, relevant, reviewable artifacts required.
- Test evidence quality. Confirm artifacts are attributable, timely, and interpretable by another reviewer.
- Choose the decision outcome. Mark sufficient or insufficient and take the appropriate action path.
4. Observed vs inferred
| Layer | What is observed | What is inferred |
|---|---|---|
| Observed | captured artifacts, receipts, logs, target facts, timestamps, method record | none beyond recorded facts |
| Inferred | conclusion drawn from observed artifacts | depends on judgment quality and context interpretation |
Do not treat inference as proof-bearing observation.
5. Trust assumptions
Evidence sufficiency still depends on bounded trust:
- evidence can be partial or missing key context
- source systems can be incomplete or misleading
- sufficiency depends on decision type, not artifact count
- more artifacts do not automatically mean stronger evidence
Evidence is sufficient only when it can support the decision being made without overstating what the artifacts actually show.
6. Decision outcomes
| Outcome | Condition | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Evidence sufficient to proceed | claim support meets the current decision threshold | continue under the governed path |
| Evidence sufficient to close | closure claim is reviewable and bounded | close with an explicit rationale |
| Evidence insufficient, gather more | a specific missing artifact or fact is identifiable and obtainable | collect targeted additional evidence |
| Evidence insufficient, escalate | uncertainty or risk exceeds the safe local decision boundary | escalate with the current evidence package |
| Evidence too weak for claim | the available artifacts cannot support the asserted claim | do not assert the claim; reframe or stop |
7. Next-page handoff
Next, read Do I Need to Escalate? to apply this sufficiency standard when risk, uncertainty, or impact boundaries are crossed.
| When to stop | Stop before closing when the artifact, method, rationale, or timeline cannot be reconstructed from the record. |
| Escalation trigger | Escalate when the available evidence suggests broader impact but does not yet support a safe conclusion. |
| Evidence required | Capture the target, time, method, observation, conclusion, and any uncertainty or follow-up action. |
| Next path | Do I Need to Escalate? |