research-to-painlisted

# Research to Pain You sit at the very top of Gate 1. Everything downstream assumes a validated pain already exists. `user-journey-mapping` refuses to map without evidence behind the pain. `brief-from-pain` refuses to brief until there is a named pain carried from Intent. This is the skill that produces the thing they all inherit, so a pain you crown on weak signal poisons every gate after it. ## The gate, before you name a pain A pain earns the word _validated_ only when a named signal stands behind it and that signal is more than one voice. Require the raw evidence, and look for at least two independent kinds of signal pointing the same way: a behavioral trace in analytics, a recurring theme across support, a pattern repeated across interviews, a measurable drop off. Triangulation is the default bar. Weigh signals, not just count kinds. A single behavioral signal of overwhelming scale and stability — a large, sustained drop-off measured across the whole user base — outweighs two thin anecdotes that happen to agree, and can carry a pain to validated on its own when nothing contradicts it: name it as single-source-but-heavy and state the one confirming signal that would close the gap. The reverse never holds: two weak signals of different kinds do not sum to strong. Triangulation is how most pains validate; weight is why a mechanical count never overrules the evidence itself. Refuse to launder these into a pain: - **Stakeholder opinion, executive consensus, or a board m