A Research Programme

An invented programme, to show the shape: why distributed engineering teams spend so much of the week in meetings, and what actually reduces it.

Same machinery as the software example. Different words for every part of it.

The tree

DirectoryProgramme/
- README.md
- Directory_eidos/
  - Directoryshapes/
    frame.question.md
    frame.prior-work.md
    frame.method.md
    frame.ethics.md
    investigation.full.md
    investigation.note.md
  - Directoryroles/ framework-owner, researcher, reviewer, sponsor
    …
  - Framework.md
  - me.md personal, gitignored
- Directoryframes/
  - index.md
  - question.md
  - prior-work.md
  - method.md
  - ethics.md
- Directoryinvestigations/
  - index.md
  - Directorymeasurement/
    what-counts-as-a-meeting.md
    calendar-data-reliability.md
  - Directoryinterventions/
    no-meeting-wednesdays.md
    default-30-to-25-minutes.md
- protocol.md a top-level doc

What it frames

The framing collection is where this framework diverges most from the software one, and the divergence is the point:

Frame	What it settles
question	What the programme asks, and why it matters
prior work	What’s already known, and where this sits against it
method	How anyone would know — the standard of evidence
ethics	Who is affected, what they consented to, what could go wrong

What the framework declares

### investigations

The programme's units, one per question, grouped by strand.

- **Leaf:** [investigations/index.md](../investigations/index.md)
- **Flavors:**
  - [full](shapes/investigation.full.md) — the complete shape (default).
  - [note](shapes/investigation.note.md) — Intent, Open Questions, Claims,
    Out of Scope; grow into full.
- **Canvas:** card from `## Intent`
- **Strands:**
  - **measurement** — establishing what we're even counting.
  - **interventions** — things a team can change, and whether they work.

The investigation shape

## Intent → ### Assumptions → ## Open Questions → ## Claims & Evidence → ## What Would Change Our Mind → ## Out of Scope → ## Dependencies → ## Method → ## Notes & Decisions.

Two sections have no counterpart in a software spec:

## Claims & Evidence takes the place acceptance criteria hold in a spec — what you assert, and what backs it.

## What Would Change Our Mind has no analogue at all. It’s the falsification condition, written down in advance so a result can’t be rationalised after the fact.

Its custom properties

Name	Type	Applies To	Meaning
`status`	Text	all	Draft / Open / Running / Answered / Inconclusive / Abandoned
`strand`	Text	`investigations`	The grouping, matching the sub-folder
`depends_on`	List	`investigations`	Investigations, data, or approvals needed first

Note the lifecycle values. software runs Draft → Done; this one runs to Answered / Inconclusive / Abandoned, because a study that returns nothing is a legitimate outcome rather than a failure. Same property name, different vocabulary, entirely the framework’s own choice.

A real blueprint

---
id: no-meeting-wednesdays
title: No-Meeting Wednesdays
summary: whether a protected weekday actually reduces meeting load, or displaces it.
strand: interventions
status: Running
depends_on:
  - "[What Counts as a Meeting](../measurement/what-counts-as-a-meeting.md)"
tags: [intervention, calendar]
---

# No-Meeting Wednesdays

## Intent

The most commonly recommended fix for meeting load is a protected weekday.
It's cheap to announce and popular in retrospectives, and we have no idea
whether it removes meetings or simply moves them to Tuesday. If it displaces
rather than reduces, teams are paying a coordination cost for nothing.

### Assumptions

Assuming calendar data is a fair proxy for meeting load — see
[Calendar Data Reliability](../measurement/calendar-data-reliability.md).
If it isn't, every intervention in this strand is unmeasurable.

## Open Questions

- Over what window would displacement even be visible — a week, a month?
- Do teams that adopt it differ from those that don't in ways that explain
  the result?

## Claims & Evidence

- **C1:** Adopting teams reduce total weekly meeting hours, not just
  Wednesday hours. *Evidence: calendar export, 12 weeks pre/post, 9 teams.*
- **C2:** The reduction persists past the first month.
  *Evidence: same series, months 2 and 3.*

## What Would Change Our Mind

Total weekly hours flat while Wednesday drops to zero. That's displacement,
and it would make the intervention cosmetic — we'd report it as such.

## Out of Scope

- Whether meetings are *useful*. This measures load, not value, and the two
  are separate programmes.
- Synchronous chat. It may absorb displaced coordination, but we have no
  reliable way to measure it.

## Method

Difference-in-differences across adopting and non-adopting teams, 12 weeks
either side. Pre-registered before the first export is pulled.