How we establish facts
Information is not proof
The volume of available information has never been higher. Its reliability has never been harder to establish. Three forces combine.
Circulation erases the trail. A piece of information repeated a hundred times looks confirmed a hundred times. It is confirmed only once — and sometimes badly.
Plausibility has been industrialised. Coherent, plausible, source-free text is now produced at no cost. Looking credible is no longer a sign of reliability.
Decisions move faster than verification. The gap is filled by habit, trust or intuition — and becomes a decision risk.
Our method exists to hold that gap: to separate, at every step, what is established from what is not.
Four levels, never blurred
Most reports blur what is proven, what is likely and what is assumed. The reader no longer knows what they are standing on.
Our deliverables never blur those registers: every assertion carries its level, its sources, and — where relevant — an explicit statement of what we could not establish.
This method is called CAMO. It is published: you can read it, use it, and check our work against our own criteria.
Separating these levels is not a stylistic precaution. It is what makes a deliverable actionable: you see where the analysis is solid, where it needs one more check, and where the decision will have to be made despite uncertainty — with your eyes open.
CAMO — four questions
To place a piece of information on that scale, we ask it four questions — always the same ones.
- CContext. Where does this information come from, and who benefits from spreading it? Information never exists independently of the conditions under which it was produced.
- AAge. How old is it, and is it still valid today? Some information does not age; other information expires in weeks.
- MMultiplicity. How many genuinely independent sources confirm it — checking that they do not cite one another? Repetition is not confirmation.
- OOrigin. Can it be traced back to a document, a register, a primary source? Information whose origin cannot be found cannot be called established.
The full framework, with its levels and its five rules, is published: read CAMO 2.0 →
Four questions, assessed together. One explicit level of confidence.
Primary source or independent corroboration.
Converging evidence, with an identified weakness.
Dependent or conflicting sources.
No evidence found; does not mean false.
A clearer basis for judgement. The decision remains yours.
Four steps, always the same
The method does not live in a document: it structures every engagement, from the first conversation to the debrief.
- 01Scoping — 30 minutes, no commitment. We establish what you are actually trying to decide. You receive a one-page note within twenty-four hours, including what does not require us. It is yours to keep.
- 02Proposal — fixed scope, deadline and fee. You know in advance what you will receive and when. We never bill by time spent.
- 03Work — with a mid-point review. If you judge that the rest will not deliver the promised value, you stop: you pay only the part committed and keep everything produced.
- 04Debrief — never a report sent without being presented. We hand over the deliverable in a working session, and we point to the shortest path to resolve what remains uncertain — even when it is not our job.
A decision you can defend
Our deliverables are not made to be filed away. They are made to hold up: before a board, a partner, a donor, an auditor — or before yourself six months from now.
Every conclusion states what it rests on. What remains uncertain is named, not hidden. And we point to the shortest path to resolve that uncertainty, even when it does not run through us.
The scoping note and the final deliverable are yours. You can pass them on, challenge them, reuse them.
What the method does not do
We write into every deliverable what it does not establish. The method itself has limits, and we state them.
It does not remove uncertainty. It makes it visible and manageable.
It does not replace your judgment. It gives it a clearer basis.
It does not guarantee an outcome. Some things cannot be verified — and we write that down rather than present them as facts.
It accesses no information unlawfully. Everything rests on open sources or on information lawfully provided.
“We do not sell certainty. We tell you what you know, and what you do not yet know.”
OUR COMMITMENT