Plenty of people say "I can make good materials." But what we really want to know is one concrete thing: in their last project, what were they handed, where did they hesitate, how did they move their hands, and what did they finally ship. The finished piece alone hides the process. So we walk through one real job in the order it happened — like watching a film straight through, not on fast-forward.
Why walk through it in order — one dish tells only half the story
A single delicious dish at a restaurant tells you only half of what a cook can do. Where did they source the ingredients? How did they spot a spoiled item? How many times did they adjust the heat? The finished plate folds all of that into one surface. To truly judge skill, you have to watch the kitchen in sequence, from prep to plating.
Judging a material creator works the same way. Looking only at the finished brochure hides how the person balanced fidelity to the source (not drifting from the evidence) with design that reaches the reader. Maybe the original paper was just easy to read, or maybe a manager rewrote everything. So we take the first article's principle — measure by the actual work — one step further and ask, in order, how that work was made.
This way of walking through has a name: the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result), a down-to-earth approach long used in hiring and behavioral assessment, which asks about behavior from four angles in time order.
STAR's four questions — like a medical intake interview
Think of a health checkup. The doctor doesn't open with "Are you healthy?" They ask, in order: since when, what symptoms, what did you do, how is it now. Asking in sequence helps you recall and answer accurately. STAR is built like that intake.
Mapped onto material creation: first Situation — what was the setting? Which drug, who receives the material, by when. Then Task — the specific homework you carried, such as "turn hard clinical data into a figure a doctor can read in three seconds, without bending a fact." Then Action — what your hands actually did, how many times and how. This matters most; we return to it. Finally Result — what you made, how you checked it, and how it fed the next job.
| The four questions | What to ask | Example in material work |
|---|---|---|
| Situation S | When, for whom, for what purpose | Diabetes drug leaflet, for clinic doctors, month-end deadline |
| Task T | The specific homework you carried | Turn long trial numbers into one clear figure |
| Action A | What you actually did and decided | Verified source numbers, drafted three versions, consulted review |
| Result R | Outcome, how checked, how reused | Figure adopted, passed internal check first try, made a template |
Digging into Action (A) — is the subject "I" or "we"?
Picture marking up a proof (a test print before the real run) with a red pen. If you can't tell who made which red mark, you can't judge the proofreading skill. The same holds in material work: Action is where STAR is most easily blurred. So the listener watches the subject of each sentence and digs.
If someone says "I organized it clearly," don't stop there. Ask: "Which part exactly did you organize?" "Why that order?" "Which number from the original paper did you move into the figure, and how?" The range the person's own hands touched separates from what the team did. If it's all "we" and never "I," their own action is still thin.
Three watchwords for digging: "where exactly," "why that way," and "back to which part of the source." A story missing these may sound impressive but is not evidence.
The third — "back to which part of the source" — is non-negotiable. In our two axes, grounding (fidelity to the facts) sets the ceiling for design. However handsome the figure, if the person never returned to the original data to check, it risks becoming a "persuasive misreading." Digging into Action is also a way to confirm whether the habit of returning to the source is there.
Reading action across four levels — the same "I made it" differs inside
Just as a driving license has a learner and a full stage, "I can make it" has levels. Placing the actions you heard onto the L1–L4 scale from article one shows the person's current height.
| Level | How it shows in Action | Clue in the interview |
|---|---|---|
| L1 this case only | Fixed it exactly as told | Explanation stops at "I did as instructed" |
| L2 reproduce a pattern | Copied a past approach | Can say "I followed the usual template" |
| L3 apply the why | Understood reasons, adapted to the case | "For this doctor I changed the order" — gives a reason |
| L4 design the system | Built a pattern or standard others can use | "I wrote a procedure so everyone can use it next time" |
One caution: a higher level is not unconditionally better. The floor (a necessary condition) and the total score (excellence) are different things. However glamorous the L4 system-building, if its foundation lacks fidelity to the source, the score falls below the floor. The listener first confirms "is this person staying true to the facts?" and only then weighs the level. Never reverse that order.
Keep a record — evidence fades with time
A trip is never remembered as accurately as the diary you wrote that day. A week later only the happy mood survives; what you ate, where and when, blurs. A STAR interview is the same: unless you write it down right after, only the impression remains and the specifics vanish.
So note what you heard, briefly and close to the person's own words, under each of the four questions. For Action especially, keep the "I" parts and the "we" parts separate. In the next article we read fidelity to the facts and design effort out of this record. The specifics gathered by walking through in order become, only then, material for judgment. An interview with no record is a meal you call delicious while forgetting the menu.
Measuring Skill from Work and Behavior ── Map of all 10 episodes
- Vol. 1: Measure by the Materials Actually Made, Not by Impressions or Self-Report ── A material maker's skill is measured from the actual deliverables and observable conduct, not from self-report or others' impressions.
- Vol. 2 (this episode): Tracing the Brief, the Choices, and the Result — In Order ── Read a creator's skill from evidence by walking through one real project in order: the brief, the thinking, the actions, and the result.
- Vol. 3: Reading "Faithfulness to the Facts" and "Craft of Delivery" Out of the Work Itself ── This installment shows how to recode a finished piece into two axes — faithfulness to the facts and the craft of getting it across — by reading concrete clues, not impressions.
- Vol. 4: The Rules That Keep Measurement Honest ── Six ground rules that keep the evaluator from drifting when measuring an author's real skill.
- Vol. 5: Three Rulers: Accuracy, Clarity, and Balance ── Defines three rulers for grading material-making skill and scores each on a four-step scale: accuracy as the floor, clarity as the reach, and balance as the adjustment between too much and too little.
- Vol. 6: How to Decide the Level — Returning to the Source Sets the Ceiling ── Work that cannot be traced back to its source cannot earn a higher level, however polished it looks. Grounding sets the ceiling.
- Vol. 7: What Deliverables Signal Which Level ── An anchor table that reads a creator's level (L1-L4) from visible deliverables and behavior patterns.
- Vol. 8: How Far Can We Trust a Judgment? ── How sure a level judgment is depends on how visible the evidence is; less observable skills produce shakier judgments, so we attach a confidence to each verdict.
- Vol. 9: Combine More Than Self-Assessment: Add the Reviewer's and Requester's View ── Layering four viewpoints — self, reviewer, requester, and AI — surfaces the deviations of omission that a single pair of eyes cannot see.
- Vol. 10 (final): Connecting the Measurement to Pass/Fail and a Development Plan ── The finale links the score to the pass floor and a plan for what to grow next.
"I can make it" breaks down, when you walk through one job in order, into a chain of concrete actions. Ask Situation, Task, Action, and Result in sequence; tell whether the subject of each action is "I" or "we"; and then confirm the habit of returning to the source. That is how impression turns into evidence.
In the next article we read fidelity to the facts and design effort out of the specifics gathered here. The record kept by walking through in order is the foundation for that reading.
- Hear the process in order, not just the product. Walking Situation-Task-Action-Result in time reveals real judgments and hand-moves that self-assessment hides.
- Identify the subject of each action. Dig for what "I" — not "we" — did, where, why, and back to which part of the source. Three watchwords turn a fine story into evidence.
- Check the floor before the level. Before weighing the L1–L4 height, confirm fidelity to the facts (grounding) is met. Never reverse that order.
- General accounts of Behavioral Event Interviewing (BEI) and the STAR method — textbook material on eliciting past concrete behavior via Situation, Task, Action, and Result.
- Foundational literature on competency assessment — describing and rating job performance through observable behaviors and graded levels.
- Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, "Standards for Fair Advertising of Drugs" — public guidance on fidelity to facts and the ban on exaggeration in pharmaceutical materials.
- Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, "Promotion Code for Prescription Drugs" — a general framework for the accuracy and propriety required when creating pharmaceutical materials.