Separate Hard Rules From Interpretation

Keep checkable rules apart from judgment calls, order them, and let a qualitative rule veto a quantitative pass.

See the situation

Start with the situation below. Next, we will work through an example together before you try the activity.

Maya · Decision designer

The case

Large manufacturer · test submission

State how mandatory restrictions interact with ordered rules. Evaluation order cannot quietly cancel an independent safety gate.

Company: Global manufacturer
Annual revenue: Clears every threshold
Matched account: In the target segment
Message: "asdfgh test test please ignore"
On the numbers: Best inbound of the month

Your task

Change the order of the checks. Compare the result while keeping the mandatory restriction in force.

Need a little guidance?

You’re done when: A positive rule can never erase an independent restriction by accident.

Evaluation order and business precedence are different things.

Need a reminder? Reopen the worked example

Watch one example first

“Recorded opt-out is active” is an explicit check. “This message expresses buying intent” involves interpretation. A positive intent judgment does not cancel an independent opt-out gate.

Why this follows from the evidence

Hard checks are reproducible from explicit inputs; interpretation exposes judgment and uncertainty. Rule order controls evaluation, not permission to bypass mandatory restrictions. Test-tagged records can be evaluated while external effects remain blocked.

GTM Lab

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Decision Card workshop

Sort the rules and set the order

Your job: Every quantitative rule says route this to a seller. Every human who looks at it says obviously not. Order the rules so the system can represent that.

Case evidence

Large manufacturer · test submission

Company: Global manufacturer
Annual revenue: Clears every threshold
Matched account: In the target segment
Message: "asdfgh test test please ignore"
On the numbers: Best inbound of the month

Finite rule-trace comparison · prepared example

See when order changes the path—and when it does not

This submission matches the account and scale checks but its message reads as a test. Compare explicit evaluation policies; this small illustration is not a general rules engine.

Choose a stated evaluation policy

Only this bounded example is evaluated; it does not change chapter completion.

Optional: inspect or edit the card sections directly

The case tool above is the main activity. These alternatives let you inspect each rule and its consequences without starting another required quiz.

Section 1 of 3

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What actually separates a hard rule from an interpretive one?

A hard rule returns the same answer for anyone applying it; an interpretive rule is a judgment two competent people could differ onA hard rule runs in code; an interpretive rule needs a modelA hard rule is non-negotiable; an interpretive rule is advisory

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