# From project notes to a case study
Aim: a draft another person can fact-check, not a success story at any cost.

## 1. Set the boundary
- Project name and dates: [fill in]
- Client name or approved anonymous description: [fill in]
- Publication permission owner and status: [fill in]
- Your exact role; what others delivered: [fill in]
- Intended reader and the decision this story should help them make: [fill in]

## 2. Describe the starting point
- What was happening before the work? [observable problem]
- Who felt the problem and how? [specific person/team/process]
- Baseline evidence and date: [source ID from the register, or UNKNOWN]
- Constraints: [time, budget, access, existing tools]
- What was outside your scope? [fill in]

## 3. Reconstruct the intervention
List three decisions. For each: what changed, why that option, what trade-off, and which source proves it happened.
1. [decision / reason / trade-off / source]
2. [decision / reason / trade-off / source]
3. [decision / reason / trade-off / source]

## 4. Separate delivery from impact
- Delivered artifact: [what exists, with source]
- Observed operational change: [who observed it, when]
- Measured business result: [metric, baseline, after, same denominator, time window, source]
- What cannot be attributed to this work alone? [other changes]
- Unknown results: [say UNKNOWN; never fill with a plausible number]

## 5. Draft in this order
Title: [specific intervention + supported outcome]
Context (50 words): reader, problem, constraints.
Work (100 words): decisions, your role, collaborators.
Result (50 words): supported changes and limitations.
Next step (one sentence): who this is useful for and what to discuss.

## Fictional worked example — never use as client proof
A small studio kept receiving requests for the right crop after image delivery. The studio introduced three export folders (web, social, print), a naming guide and a contact sheet. A sample delivery folder confirms the files exist (E01). The studio owner says the folder is easier to navigate (E02, subjective feedback; permission pending). No support-request count was recorded before or after.

Safe draft: “We reorganised the studio's delivery folder around three use cases and added a contact sheet. The example delivery shows the new structure. We have not measured whether follow-up requests decreased.”
Unsafe draft: “We cut support requests by 80% and doubled client satisfaction.” No evidence supports either number.

## Finish
Copy every factual claim into the proof register. Remove, qualify or investigate claims without evidence. Complete the publication checklist.