The Framework Traversal

 ┌──────────────┐
 │ F1: Mental    │    "What kind of thing is this?"
 │    Models     │
 └──────┬───────┘
        │ primes
        ▼
 ┌──────────────┐
 │ F2: Principles│    "What cannot change?"
 │  (Constraints)│
 └──────┬───────┘
        │ constrains
        ▼
 ┌──────────────┐     ┌──────────────┐
 │ F4: Tradeoffs │◄───│ F3: Failure   │    "What did we choose,
 │  (Decisions)  │───►│    Modes      │     and what breaks?"
 └──────┬───────┘     └──────────────┘
        │ checked by            ▲
        ▼                       │ validates
 ┌──────────────┐               │
 │ F5: Review    │───────────────┘
 │   Questions   │    "Does the system match the model?"
 └──────┬───────┘
        │ maps to
        ▼
 ┌──────────────┐
 │ F6: Archetypes│    "Which known pattern does this fit?"
 └──────┬───────┘
        │ drawn as
        ▼
 ┌──────────────┐
 │ F7: Diagrams  │    "Who needs to see what?"
 └──────┬───────┘
        │ built from
        ▼
 ┌──────────────┐
 │ F8: Components│    "Shared vocabulary across teams"
 │  (Vocabulary) │
 └──────┬───────┘
        │ bounded by
        ▼
 ┌──────────────┐
 │ F9: Laws      │    "What holds regardless of intent?"
 │  (Empirical)  │
 └──────────────┘

 FAILURE PATH: Skip F2 or F3 → decisions lack structural
 honesty → FM11 (Observability Blindness) at the org level

The nine frameworks form a directed traversal, not a menu. Each framework narrows the space for the next: F1 determines which mental models are relevant, F2 identifies the constraints those models cannot escape, and F3 names the failure modes those constraints create exposure to. Skipping a framework does not save time — it defers the cost to the point where the skipped analysis would have changed the outcome, which is almost always during an incident at 2am.