Hypothesis Driven Consulting Workplan
Three sheets and five documents that price every hypothesis in analyst-days, check the data behind it, and fix the number that kills it first.
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Analysis Plan · Marchwood Distribution · margin down 4.2 points
The budget is a residual, not the headcount
| Two analysts full time, manager at 40 percent, six weeks | 72 person-days |
| less interviews, scheduling and write-up | −14 |
| less synthesis and document production | −11 |
| less steering meetings and client management | −6 |
| Analyst-days available to test anything | 41 |
22 leaves cost 105 days to test in full
| Ref | Hypothesis | Pts | Full | Data | Threshold, declared first | Bought |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| H-01 | Discount authority used beyond policy | 1.3 | 4 | Now | Under 15 of the 40 above the band | Full |
| H-06 | Competitors forced price concessions | 1.2 | 11 | None | None. No competitor prices exist | Cannot test |
| H-08 | Supplier cost increases absorbed | 1.1 | 5 | Now | Top 200 pass-through over 80 pct | Full |
| H-04 | Rebate accruals understated | 0.6 | 6 | 3 days | Year-end variance under $250,000 | Proxy |
| H-12 | Import currency exposure unhedged | 0.4 | 6 | Build | None. Needs a rebuilt ledger | Dropped |
105 analyst-days of tests against a budget of 41, a 2.6 times overrun. Five of the 22 leaves shown, and candidate sizes sum to 13.5 points against the 4.2 actually lost. Nine bought in full at 33 days, five proxied at 6, six dropped, two untestable.
Search this query and every result is the same artifact. An overriding question, a MECE issue tree, falsifiable hypotheses at the leaves, then a table mapping each one to the analyses that would test it, the data sources, an owner and a date, usually drawn as a Gantt. The best of them say outright that a workplan should detail the analyses, end products, sources, and the timing and responsibility per hypothesis. Not one of them prices the analysis.
Three columns are missing from all of them. What the full test costs in analyst-days, because a plan with owners and dates and no day count cannot decline a branch. Whether the data exists, because every template has a source column and treats it as an aspiration. And the number that kills the hypothesis, declared before anybody looks: the ICMJE requires the whole registration data set public before the first participant is enrolled precisely to stop outcomes being reframed later.
Marchwood Distribution, a $186m industrial distributor, lost 4.2 points of gross margin over seven quarters. Six weeks and three people is 72 person-days gross and 41 analyst-days once interviews, synthesis and steering come out. The 22 leaves cost 105 days to test in full, so nine were bought, five proxied, six dropped with written reasons and two recorded as untestable. Run the interviews first with the stakeholder interview programme pack, or read the client's own material with the document review and evidence log.
What's in the pack
Hypothesis Register
One row per leaf carrying its candidate size, full test cost in analyst-days, data state, declared threshold, what was bought, and the verdict against the number.
Workplan
One row per workstream with an owner, showing the full cost of what it holds against what the budget bought and what it actually used after reallocation.
Data Requirements Log
One row per requirement with its readiness state, its lead time in working days and the person who has to release it. The six day item reorders a whole workstream.
Hypothesis Tree
The question, three branches that exhaust the arithmetic, and every leaf sized before it is priced, including the two struck out with the reason they failed.
Analysis Plan
What was bought, what was declined and in what order it runs, with the sequencing note per workstream and the reallocation rule agreed before the work starts.
What the Tests Found
Confirmed, killed, ambiguous, never bought and could not be bought, kept in five sections, closing on the residual arithmetic rather than on a total.
How the Test Budget Is Allocated
The full worked example: 72 person-days down to 41, 105 days of tests refused to 39, and the six returned days traced to the two tests they bought.
A hypothesis you cannot afford to test is not a hypothesis
The standing rule. Four fields on every row, four states per leaf, and three of the four are a no. Turn the answer into a report with the findings pack.
How to use it
- 1
Open in River, or take it blank
Open the pack in River and send the question with your intake material and the team, or download the Word documents and CSV sheets and work through them yourself.
- 2
Compute the budget before the tree
Gross capacity minus interviews, synthesis, document production and steering. That residual is the only day count you can spend on testing, and it is usually a third smaller than the team looks.
- 3
Price every leaf, then check its data
Cost each test to a defensible verdict rather than to a first look, then classify its data as available now, available on request with a lead time, needs building, or does not exist.
- 4
Declare the number, then buy
Write the kill threshold and the resolve-by day on every row before any query runs. PCAOB AS 2105 requires materiality to be expressed as a specified amount during planning, not after the evidence.
Frequently asked questions
Is this template free?
Yes. The zip is Word documents and CSV sheets, no account and no card. Edit with AI is the optional half: the agent builds the tree, prices every test and puts a threshold on each row. The rest sit in the template library.
What format are the downloaded files?
Five Word documents and three CSV sheets in one zip, no conversion needed. The sheets carry the columns that do the work: full test days, data readiness, threshold declared before testing, and days used. Open them in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets.
What does Edit with AI actually do?
It reads the engagement question and your intake material, then computes the testing budget as a residual. From there it builds and sizes the tree, prices every leaf, and checks each data source into one of four readiness states. The allocation comes back stated as what is not being bought.
How do I price a test I have never run?
Estimate days to a defensible verdict, which means the extract, the reconciliation to something the client recognises, the analysis and the write-up. Pricing the first day of an analysis as the analysis is how a six day test gets scheduled as a two day one and takes six anyway.
Can a kill threshold be changed once it is set?
Yes, and the revision is logged with the old number, the new one, the date and the reason. AS 2105 requires the auditor to reevaluate materiality as the audit progresses. What is not allowed is a silent revision after the result is known.
What if the data for my biggest hypothesis does not exist?
Then it is a different kind of item, not a low priority. Both untestable hypotheses in the worked example ranked in the top six by size, so they ship in the executive summary as a stated limit. Evidence has to be relevant and reliable to support anything.
Does this replace the workplan I report against?
No. This decides what gets bought and what the budget refuses. Tracking burn against a fixed fee once delivery starts is the workplan and resource tracking pack, and building the argument afterwards is the storyline tool.
Price the tree before you prune it
Take the Word documents and CSV sheets blank, or send River the question and the day count and get back the allocation as a list of what is not being bought.
Edit with AI