What-If Analysis — anticipatory skepticism as a working protocol

Turn «ماذا لو» / "what if" from a talent into a protocol: assume the failure (or event) HAS ALREADY HAPPENED, explain how it happened via backward chains, extract early-warning indicators, assign owners. 75+ years of independent practice across 8 fields (HAZOP 1963 · FMEA 1949 · Shell scenario planning · CIA tradecraft · PreMortem · chaos engineering · counterfactual psychology · Popper), distilled into ONE session protocol.

Use it when planning a project, committing to a big decision, closing a stage gate, or when the user asks about «ماذا لو» / pre-mortem / anticipatory thinking. The full Arabic methodology guide (8 schools, timeline, sources, templates, anti-patterns) ships at references/what-if-guide.ar.md — read it when teaching or when the user asks for the deep study version.

Core mechanics — why it works

1. Past tense beats future tense. "The project already failed — why?" (prospective hindsight) raises correct reason-identification by ~30% (Mitchell/Russo/Pennington 1989; Klein HBR 2007 — the PreMortem).
2. Ask how, not whether. "How could it happen?" (CIA 2009) suspends the probability debate and moves straight to preparation.
3. No indicator → anxiety; no owner → a promise. A scenario with no early-warning signal or owner does not enter the output table.

When to use (triggers)

• Before starting an EPIC / major commitment / Stage 0 → full 60-min session
• At every stage gate → 15-min quick pass on the NEW critical assumptions
• Weekly during execution → indicator review, 15 min
• After any real incident → Qass Al-Haq (root cause) THEN "what if it recurs?"
• After unexpected big success → "what if it doubles — what breaks?" (SWIFT covers POSITIVE outcomes; the protocol is not only fear-mongering)

The 60-minute session protocol

Guide words — the 7 (from HAZOP, adapted universal)

Output table (copy-ready)

Impact/likelihood: low / medium / high. No fake numbers — relative ranking.

Session rules (5)

1. Defer filtering — generate freely first, critique later.
2. No personal defense — challenge the plan, not the planner.
3. Indicator or nothing — a scenario with no early-warning signal = anxiety.
4. Owner per item — no owner = floating promise.
5. Cadence review — a session without follow-up is theater (10–15 min weekly).

Anti-patterns

• «ماذا لو» without indicators → chronic anxiety consuming the team
• Opening every possibility without ranking → decision paralysis (top items act; the rest watch)
• Forgetting the positive face (what if it succeeds beyond plans?)
• Mixing anticipatory sessions with retrospective RCA — different meetings
• Skepticism aimed at people instead of ideas
• Over-documenting — one table per session is enough

Integration with existing protocols

• Red Team Attack = adversarial EXECUTION of this method; Qass Al-Haq = its retrospective mirror; What-If = the ANTICIPATION layer before both.
• Drops into stage gates (3.5/4) and pairs with specification-writing / architecture-critique; every EPIC gets a PreMortem before kickoff.

Solo mode (30 min)

1. Before any new commitment: "if this fails within 3 months — first 3 reasons?"
2. Before any technical decision: "if the main assumption falls — how do I detect it early?"
3. Weekly: "which indicator moved since last session?"
4. On big success: "if this doubles — what breaks?"

Sources (compact)

Klein, Performing a Project Premortem (HBR 2007) · Mitchell/Russo/Pennington 1989 · CIA Tradecraft Primer (2009) · OSHA PSM accepted PHA methods (What-If, HAZOP, FMEA, FTA) · HAZOP/IEC 61882 · SWIFT/ASEMS · Army Red Team Handbook · FMEA/MIL-P-1629 · principlesofchaos.org · Roese counterfactual theory · Popper falsifiability. Full citations in the Arabic guide.