Cognitive Scaffold

Preparing your thinking workspace

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MENTAL MODEL · M7334

Well Array

Well Array
BusinessmediumProduct Management
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Updated 2026-08-16

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INTRODUCTION

English translation pending.

CORE DEFINITION

Well Array comes from the I Ching hexagram Jing, describing a well whose walls have cracked so that clean water cannot be drawn even though the water itself remains good. Its core proposition is that value fails to reach users when the connecting structure, rather than the product, has failed. The key qualifier is diagnostic order: the model applies when the product is genuinely adequate and the channel is verifiably broken, since the same symptom appears when the product simply is not good.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

psychology

Reduce cognitive load

- Symptom reading: recognize the pattern of a genuinely good product that almost nobody uses. - Channel diagnosis: check whether the walls, meaning distribution and access, have actually broken down. - Repair ordering: fix the connection first before spending anything more on further product iteration.

anchor

Anchor fast decisions

A product reaches users only through a chain of channels, permissions, and interfaces, and every link is a potential failure point. When the chain breaks, quality becomes irrelevant because nothing arrives. Because the product itself looks fine from the inside, teams default to iterating on it, which raises quality further while the actual blockage stays untouched.

MINIMUM ACTION

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Source support: Explicit

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    zh.wikipedia.orghttps://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%98%93%E7%BB%8FZH · Explicit
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