Competent stranger test for workflow steps — could someone…
For each workflow step, apply the competent stranger test: if you handed this step to a competent stranger with no additional context, could they complete it without asking a single clarifying question? Any step that fails this test is not yet atomic.
When This Fires
- When writing or reviewing workflow documentation and checking for completeness
- When someone follows your documented workflow and gets stuck or does it wrong
- When handing off a process and wanting to ensure zero-context execution
- When converting personal tacit workflows into team-sharable documented procedures
Common Failure Mode
The curse of knowledge: you read your own documentation and it seems perfectly clear because your brain automatically fills in the unstated assumptions. "Upload the file" — where? In what format? Using which tool? Named how? Each unstated assumption is a question the competent stranger would need to ask. The fix is to literally imagine handing the step to someone who has never seen your system before.
The Protocol
(1) For each workflow step, perform the competent stranger simulation: read the step as if you had no context beyond the document itself. (2) Count the questions that arise: "Where?" "Using what?" "In what format?" "Named how?" "What counts as done?" (3) If question count > 0 → the step is not atomic. Rewrite to explicitly answer every question within the step text. (4) Common missing elements: specific tool/location ("in Google Sheets, column B"), output format ("as a PDF named YYYY-MM-report"), completion criteria ("until all rows show green status"), and handoff instruction ("then notify [person] via [channel]"). (5) After rewriting, re-run the test. Repeat until the step survives with zero questions. The goal is documentation so explicit that execution requires zero interpretation.