Introduction — Get the Map First

Dive straight into the details and you will get lost. So this one page hands you the whole map first. What is the work of material review for? What parts is it made of? Where should you start reading? We look at just those, in plain words, before anything else.

One Single Question

Materials put out by a drug company can make doctors and patients perceive things as a little better than the facts. It happens even without bad intent. Say a chart of strong results is printed large while the side-effect note is shrunk. In the reader's mind, the image of a wonderful drug swells past the real picture.

Where does this gap between fact and perception appear, who spots it, who pushes it back, and who keeps it a habit across the organization? The work that answers this question is material review. The whole framework branches out from this one question.

Three Jobs, Linked in Order

The work is made of three moves. The order matters; they connect top to bottom like a flowing river. Block any one and no water reaches downstream.

The three are in series, joined as one line. Spot it but fail to push back, and it leaks. Push back but fail to make it stick, and the same thing comes up again next month. Being good at just one is not enough.

The Whole Map — Eight Skills Under Three Roles

These three moves break into eight finer "skills (dimensions)." A dimension is a viewpoint for measuring a person's ability. The table below is the map of the whole framework. For each role, it lists what skill exists and what it is for. The details of each dimension come later, one by one. Here it is enough to know "these parts exist."

Two Rulers for Measuring People — Reach and Depth

All eight skills are measured with the same two rulers. Remember these and the rest gets much easier.

The first is reach: how wide a range you can handle. The second is depth: whether you grasp not just the surface words but the principle underneath — the "why it turns out this way." In a chef's terms, the number of dishes you can cook is reach; being able to explain "why this flavor comes out" is depth.

Make these the vertical and horizontal axes, and you get four boxes. The main road runs along the diagonal from bottom-left to top-right, where both grow together. The trouble spots are top-left and bottom-right: a "one wing" lopsided, unfinished form that looks capable but breaks at the key moment. The person whose theory is grand but useless on the floor (top-left), and the one who handles volume but, lacking principle, is weak with any new shape (bottom-right). Only by looking through both axes do you see these two are different.

L1 to L4 — Stages of Mastery

The same skill is riper in some people than others. We show this on a four-step scale, L1 to L4. A driver's license makes it clear.

L1 is the learner's-permit level: doing a set procedure, only for the moment. L2 can drive ordinary roads alone. L3 is the veteran who grasps the principle of why. L4 is the instructor, who can not only do it but set the standard and train others. Bigger number, higher up — that is all. Everyone starts at L1.

Three Series — Measure, Draw the Line, Actually Measure

This whole guide is made of three series with divided roles; together they make one full loop. In a health-check analogy: decide what to test, set the pass line, then actually measure.

"Measure, draw the line, actually measure." Only with all three can you judge a person's ability fairly. What you are reading now is the entrance to ①.

Where to Start Reading

The directions are simple. First grasp the whole picture in this introduction. Next, in Series 1 (the Framework), go through the eight skills one at a time. When you need the pass line or the actual measuring method, move on to Series 2 and 3. You do not have to read everything from the start. Map in hand, you will not get lost.