Research & reasoning · Business & strategy
Counterfactual.
An alternative to what actually happened, used to reason about what might have happened under different conditions.
Useful when separating a change’s effect from what would have happened anyway.
“State the counterfactual: what would sales likely have done if we had not run the campaign?”
A closer look
A before-and-after difference is not automatically the effect of an intervention. Ask what the outcome would have been without that intervention. The alternative cannot usually be observed directly for the same case, so explain the assumptions and evidence used to estimate it.
Put it to work
“Compare the result with a credible estimate of what would have happened without the workflow change.”
A useful distinction
An imagined alternative is not evidence by itself. Its credibility depends on the model, comparison, and assumptions supporting it.