Intent Precedes Execution
Slide Idea
This slide proposes that creative and technical work benefits from articulating intent—what one wants to achieve—before selecting tools or beginning execution. The example specifies intent across multiple dimensions: subject matter (a dog chasing a ball on the High Line), desired tone (playful, observational), and aesthetic style (urban cinema verité). The accompanying note warns that unclear initial task framing increases cognitive load during work, interferes with downstream decision-making, and reduces outcome quality.
Key Concepts & Definitions
Intent
Intent refers to the purposeful goals, desired outcomes, or intended effects that guide creative or technical work. Intent operates at multiple levels of specificity: high-level purpose (why this work matters), functional objectives (what problems it solves or needs it addresses), experiential qualities (what emotional or perceptual effects it should create), and aesthetic or technical characteristics (what style, tone, or approach it should embody). Articulating intent before beginning implementation provides direction for subsequent decisions about tools, methods, and specific choices. Unlike requirements (which specify what must be included) or constraints (which specify what must be avoided), intent describes aspirational qualities that implementation should realize. Well-articulated intent balances specificity (providing meaningful guidance) with flexibility (allowing exploration of how to achieve intended effects).
Source: Nelson, H. G., & Stolterman, E. (2014). The design way: Intentional change in an unpredictable world (2nd ed.). MIT Press.
Task Framing
Task framing is the way a problem, goal, or work assignment is initially conceptualized, structured, and presented—establishing what the task is, what success looks like, what constraints apply, and what approach might be taken. Framing affects how people understand and approach tasks: different framings of the same underlying work can lead to significantly different strategies, effort allocation, and outcomes. Research demonstrates that task framing influences cognitive processing, decision-making quality, and performance outcomes. Clear, well-structured task framing reduces ambiguity about goals and scope, enabling workers to direct cognitive resources toward substantive problem-solving rather than toward clarifying what the task actually requires. Conversely, unclear or ambiguous task framing increases cognitive load by requiring workers to simultaneously interpret the task and attempt to complete it, dividing attention and degrading performance.
Source: Zhang, Y., & Fitzsimons, G. J. (2015). Task framing and decision making. In G. Keren & G. Wu (Eds.), Wiley Blackwell handbook of judgment and decision making (pp. 505-520).
Cognitive Load
Cognitive load refers to the total amount of mental effort and working memory resources required to perform a task. Cognitive load theory distinguishes between intrinsic load (complexity inherent in the task itself), extraneous load (mental effort resulting from how information is presented or how the task is structured), and germane load (productive mental effort directed toward learning and schema development). Tasks with unclear framing or ambiguous goals impose extraneous cognitive load: workers must expend mental resources figuring out what they are supposed to do rather than doing it. High cognitive load degrades performance on complex tasks, impairs decision-making, reduces working memory capacity for problem-solving, and increases errors. Reducing extraneous load through clear task framing allows cognitive resources to focus on intrinsic task demands rather than task interpretation.
Source: Sweller, J., Ayres, P., & Kalyuga, S. (2011). Cognitive load theory. Springer.
Specification
A specification is a detailed, typically written description that defines requirements, characteristics, criteria, or parameters that work must satisfy. Specifications translate abstract intent into concrete, measurable, or verifiable criteria. Technical specifications might define functional requirements (what the system must do), performance requirements (how well it must do it), interface requirements (how it connects to other systems), and quality attributes (reliability, usability, maintainability). Creative specifications might define subject matter, tone, style, target audience, format, length, and deliverables. Specifications serve multiple functions: they guide implementation decisions, enable evaluation of whether work meets requirements, facilitate communication among collaborators, and create documentation of what was intended. The process of creating specifications often clarifies initially vague intent by forcing explicit articulation of what success requires.
Source: Wiegers, K., & Beatty, J. (2013). Software requirements (3rd ed.). Microsoft Press.
Constraint as Creative Support
The concept that constraints—limitations on what can be done, resources available, or approaches permitted—can enhance rather than inhibit creativity by reducing decision paralysis, focusing attention, and providing structure for exploration. Research in creative processes demonstrates that completely open-ended tasks ("make anything") often produce less creative outcomes than constrained tasks ("make something using only these three materials, addressing this theme"). Constraints function as scaffolding that supports creative work by reducing the overwhelming scope of unlimited possibilities, providing clear criteria against which to evaluate options, and creating challenges that prompt innovative problem-solving. Heidi Philipsen's research on film education found that filmmakers working under specified constraints (subject, time limit, technical restrictions) reported feeling more focused, secure, and inspired than when given complete freedom—the constraints channeled creativity productively rather than suppressing it.
Source: Philipsen, H. (2009). Constraints in film making processes offer an exercise to the imagination. Seminar.net, 5(1), 203-217.
Downstream Decision-Making
Downstream decision-making refers to choices made later in a process that depend on or are shaped by earlier decisions, framings, or commitments. In creative and technical workflows, initial decisions about intent, approach, or architecture constrain and guide subsequent decisions: choosing a particular visual style influences camera choices, choosing a system architecture influences implementation approaches, choosing a narrative structure influences scene sequencing. When initial framing is unclear, downstream decision-making suffers in multiple ways: workers lack clear criteria for evaluating options, decisions get revisited repeatedly as understanding clarifies, choices prove inconsistent with each other, and rework becomes necessary when earlier ambiguities resolve incompatibly. Clear upfront framing enables coherent downstream decision-making by establishing shared understanding of goals and criteria that inform later choices.
Source: Simon, H. A. (1996). The sciences of the artificial (3rd ed.). MIT Press.
Why This Matters for Students' Work
The principle that intent precedes execution addresses a common pattern in student work: beginning implementation before adequately clarifying what one intends to achieve. This pattern creates multiple interconnected difficulties.
Students often experience pressure to produce visible progress quickly—to start writing, building, designing, or filming rather than spending time planning or clarifying goals. This pressure may come from external sources (deadlines, expectations) or internal sources (anxiety about getting started, discomfort with ambiguity, desire to appear productive). Beginning execution without clear intent feels like progress but often leads to inefficient work requiring extensive revision.
When students start work with unclear intent, they encounter continuous decision-making difficulties. Every choice—what to include, what to emphasize, what approach to take, what style to adopt—requires evaluating options against criteria. But if intent is vague, evaluation criteria remain undefined. Should this scene be humorous or serious? Should this interface prioritize efficiency or discoverability? Should this argument emphasize empirical evidence or theoretical framing? Without clear intent, these questions lack definitive answers, forcing students to either make arbitrary choices or repeatedly interrupt work to reconsider fundamental direction.
The cognitive load implications are significant. Students working with unclear intent must simultaneously interpret what they are trying to achieve and figure out how to achieve it—dividing limited working memory resources between task clarification and task execution. This dual demand degrades performance on both: the ambiguity prevents full engagement with implementation challenges, while implementation demands prevent adequate reflection on goals. Research demonstrates that task framing ambiguity increases cognitive load and reduces decision quality: people make poorer choices when uncertain about what they are optimizing for.
The concept of downstream decision-making reveals why initial ambiguity compounds over time. Early decisions made without clear intent establish patterns or commitments that constrain later options. A student who begins writing without clarifying argumentative intent may produce several paragraphs establishing one framing, then recognize that a different framing would better serve their emerging understanding—requiring substantial revision. A student who begins building a system without clarifying functional intent may implement architectural choices that prove inappropriate once requirements clarify—necessitating rework. Each downstream decision either reinforces initial choices (creating path dependency) or requires revisiting them (creating rework). Clear initial intent reduces this problem by ensuring early decisions align with overall goals.
The example in the slide demonstrates multi-dimensional intent specification: subject (what will be depicted), tone (what emotional or observational quality), and style (what aesthetic approach). This multi-dimensionality is instructive: comprehensive intent requires considering multiple aspects of what work should achieve. Subject alone does not determine approach—the same subject could be treated documentary-style, narratively, abstractly, or experimentally. Tone alone does not determine content—playfulness could characterize many different subjects. Style alone does not determine purpose—cinema verité could serve multiple intentions. Articulating intent across dimensions provides richer guidance than single-aspect specification.
Treating constraint as creative support rather than creative limitation reframes how students might approach specification. Students sometimes resist articulating intent precisely, viewing precision as limiting their flexibility or closing off creative possibilities. However, research on creativity in film education and design practice demonstrates that well-chosen constraints often enhance creativity by focusing exploration productively. Completely open-ended assignments ("make a short film about whatever you want") can produce creative paralysis or superficial work, while constrained assignments ("make a short film showing a character discovering something unexpected, using only natural light, in a public space") provide structure that channels creative problem-solving. The constraints do not determine the solution—many distinct creative approaches could satisfy them—but they reduce overwhelming possibility space to manageable scope.
For collaborative work, articulated intent serves a coordination function. When multiple people work on shared projects, they need common understanding of goals to make coherent individual contributions. Without articulated intent, collaborators may pursue inconsistent directions, duplicate efforts, or create elements that do not integrate well. Documented intent creates reference point enabling distributed decision-making: each collaborator can evaluate their choices against stated intent without requiring continuous consultation.
How This Shows Up in Practice (Non-Tool-Specific)
Filmmaking and Media Production
Professional film production begins with extensive pre-production planning before cameras roll. Directors, cinematographers, and production designers articulate intent across multiple dimensions: narrative intent (what story is being told, what themes are explored), emotional intent (what feelings should scenes evoke), visual intent (what aesthetic should characterize the imagery), and production intent (what practical constraints apply). These articulations guide downstream decisions throughout production.
A cinematographer preparing to shoot a scene needs clear intent to make appropriate choices about camera placement, lens selection, lighting approach, and movement. Vague direction ("make it look good") provides insufficient guidance—countless different approaches could "look good" in different ways. Specific intent ("the character should feel isolated and observed, like they're under surveillance, clinical and unsettling") immediately suggests approaches: longer lenses compressing space, harder lighting creating stark contrasts, camera positions suggesting external viewpoints. The intent does not dictate a single solution but dramatically focuses the decision space.
Production designers creating environments need intent clarity to make thousands of micro-decisions about props, colors, textures, spatial arrangements, and details. Without clear understanding of what atmosphere, time period, character psychology, or narrative function the space should embody, designers must either guess at intent or repeatedly seek clarification—both inefficient. Articulated intent ("the apartment should feel like someone is failing to maintain normal life—organized enough to suggest they're trying, messy enough to show they're losing the battle") enables autonomous decision-making aligned with directorial vision.
Film students learning production commonly encounter the problem of starting production without adequate intent clarification. They may begin shooting because they have equipment access and locations available, without clear understanding of what they want the footage to express or achieve. The resulting footage often lacks coherence—individual shots may be technically competent but do not assemble into meaningful sequences because they were not guided by unified intent. Experienced filmmakers spend substantial time in pre-production precisely to avoid this problem: storyboards, shot lists, mood boards, and production design documentation all function to articulate and share intent before execution begins.
Design
Interface designers beginning projects benefit from articulating intent across dimensions: user intent (what are users trying to accomplish), experiential intent (what should the interaction feel like), functional intent (what capabilities must the system provide), and brand intent (what organizational values should the design embody). These articulations guide specific design decisions about layout, interaction patterns, visual hierarchy, and feature prioritization.
Without clear intent, designers face decision paralysis or produce inconsistent work. Should navigation be prominent or minimal? That depends on whether intent emphasizes feature discoverability (suggesting prominent navigation) or task focus (suggesting minimal navigation). Should visual style be playful or serious? That depends on the intended tone and audience. Every design choice involves trade-offs; evaluating trade-offs requires clarity about what is being optimized.
Design critiques often reveal unclear intent when reviewers provide contradictory feedback because they are evaluating against different implicit criteria. One reviewer suggests adding more information to a screen; another suggests removing information for clarity. Both might be correct given different intent assumptions. Articulated intent resolves these apparent contradictions by making explicit what the design should prioritize.
Product designers working on physical artifacts face similar challenges. Designing a kitchen knife requires intent clarity: Is this for professional chefs or home cooks? Is priority performance or safety? Should aesthetic be modern or traditional? Each intent dimension influences material choices, ergonomic decisions, manufacturing approaches, and detail refinement. Beginning design exploration without intent clarity leads to inconsistent solutions that do not cohere around unified purpose.
Writing
Writers benefit from clarifying intent before drafting: rhetorical intent (what should readers understand, believe, or do), structural intent (how should argument develop), tonal intent (what voice and register), and audience intent (who are the readers and what do they already know). These clarifications guide writing choices about organization, evidence selection, sentence complexity, and terminology.
Students often begin writing with only vague intent ("write about climate change") and discover through drafting that they have not clarified what specifically they are arguing, what angle they are taking, or what readers should conclude. This discovery-through-writing can be productive for initial exploration, but it becomes problematic when students attempt to proceed without ever clarifying intent—continuing to add content without unified direction. The result is typically unfocused writing requiring substantial revision.
Professional writers in most genres work from specifications or briefs that articulate intent: journalists receive story assignments specifying angle, length, audience, and tone; technical writers receive product documentation requirements; marketing copywriters receive campaign briefs defining message, audience, and call-to-action. These specifications enable efficient writing by establishing clear success criteria before drafting begins.
Academic writing particularly benefits from intent clarification. A research paper requires clarity about: What is the research question? What contribution does this work make? What is the argument structure? What evidence supports claims? Students who begin writing academic papers without answering these questions typically produce meandering text that lacks clear throughline. Taking time to articulate intent—perhaps through outlining, thesis statement development, or abstract writing before full drafting—focuses the writing process productively.
Computing and Engineering
Software development projects begin with requirements specification that articulates intent: functional intent (what must the system do), performance intent (speed, scalability, reliability requirements), user experience intent (what should interaction be like), and architectural intent (what principles should guide system structure). Clear specifications enable developers to make implementation decisions confidently without requiring constant clarification.
Projects beginning with vague specifications encounter predictable problems: developers make incompatible assumptions about requirements, implement features that do not align with actual needs, create architectures inappropriate for actual use cases, and require extensive rework when ambiguities resolve. Requirements clarification consumes significant early-stage project effort precisely because ambiguous intent causes expensive downstream problems.
Systems engineering emphasizes upfront architecture definition for similar reasons. Early architectural decisions constrain implementation choices throughout development: choosing microservices versus monolithic architecture affects deployment, scaling, team organization, and debugging approaches. Making architectural decisions without clear intent about system priorities (rapid development? easy maintenance? high performance? geographic distribution?) often produces architectures misaligned with actual needs.
Engineering students learning to design systems sometimes resist specification, viewing it as bureaucratic overhead delaying "real work" of implementation. However, professional engineering practices emphasize specification because unclear intent amplifies downstream problems: ambiguous requirements cause misimplemented features, unclear performance criteria prevent optimization, vague architectural principles lead to inconsistent design decisions. Time invested in intent clarification reduces total project time by preventing expensive rework.
Common Misunderstandings
"Articulating intent eliminates flexibility and creative discovery"
This objection treats intent specification as rigidly deterministic—as if articulating what one wants to achieve prevents discovering better approaches during execution. However, well-articulated intent provides direction without dictating specific solutions. The example in the slide demonstrates this: specifying subject (dog on High Line), tone (playful, observational), and style (cinema verité) constrains the work meaningfully while leaving countless implementation choices open. What specific moments to capture? What camera angles? What framing? What duration? Intent establishes success criteria ("does this capture playful observation in verité style?") without prescribing exact execution. The confusion may arise from experiences with overly prescriptive specifications that dictate implementation details rather than articulating desired outcomes. Good intent specification describes what to achieve, allowing flexibility in how to achieve it.
"Working without clear intent enables pure creative exploration unbounded by preconceptions"
This romanticized view of creativity imagines that beginning work without defined direction allows serendipitous discovery impossible with predetermined goals. While unstructured exploration can generate surprising results, research on creative processes demonstrates that completely open-ended work often produces less focused, less coherent, and less satisfying outcomes than work guided by clear (though not rigid) intent. The cognitive load research explains why: without clear goals, creators must simultaneously generate possibilities and evaluate them against unstated criteria—dividing attention between generation and evaluation impairs both. Philipsen's research on film education found that filmmakers given constraints reported feeling more creatively productive, not less—the constraints focused their exploration productively. Intent does not prevent discovery; it channels discovery toward productive ends rather than aimless wandering.
"Intent can be fully clarified before beginning any work"
This misunderstanding assumes intent specification is complete pre-work occurring entirely before execution begins. In reality, intent often clarifies through iterative engagement: initial attempts reveal aspects of goals previously unconsidered, execution challenges prompt intent refinement, and early results clarify what one actually wants versus what one thought one wanted. The principle "intent precedes execution" means that each cycle of work benefits from clarifying intent before that cycle's execution—not that all intent must be perfectly articulated before any work begins. Professional practice typically involves iterative intent refinement: initial specifications guide first implementations, which reveal ambiguities or gaps, prompting specification revisions, which guide subsequent implementations. The key insight is that attempting execution with completely unexamined intent leads to inefficiency; taking time to articulate even preliminary intent focuses effort productively.
"Specifications constrain creativity by imposing external requirements"
This conflates specifications imposed by external stakeholders (clients, supervisors, institutions) with intent articulated by creators themselves. External specifications can indeed constrain work in ways creators might not choose independently—client requirements might demand approaches creators find less interesting. However, self-articulated intent serves a different function: it externalizes and makes explicit the creator's own goals, enabling more focused pursuit of those goals. The slide emphasizes that the creator articulates intent ("what we want") before selecting tools or beginning execution. This self-directed specification empowers rather than constrains: it prevents the creator from pursuing ill-defined directions that will not satisfy their own goals. When students resist articulating their own intent, they often conflate it with accepting external constraints they have not chosen.
Scholarly Foundations
Philipsen, H. (2009). Constraints in film making processes offer an exercise to the imagination. Seminar.net, 5(1), 203-217.**
Empirical research examining how constraints function in film education at the Danish National Film School, demonstrating that filmmakers working under specified constraints (theme, time limits, technical restrictions) reported feeling more focused, secure, and creatively productive than those given complete freedom. Challenges the assumption that creativity requires unlimited freedom, showing instead that well-chosen constraints channel creative effort productively. Directly relevant to understanding how articulated intent (which functions as self-imposed constraint) supports rather than inhibits creative work.
Zhang, Y., & Fitzsimons, G. J. (2015). Task framing and decision making. In G. Keren & G. Wu (Eds.), Wiley Blackwell handbook of judgment and decision making (pp. 505-520). Wiley Blackwell.
Comprehensive review of research demonstrating that how tasks are framed—how problems are presented and structured—significantly influences decision-making strategies, effort allocation, and outcomes. Establishes that framing effects operate through multiple mechanisms including attention focus, information processing priorities, and evaluation criteria activation. Essential for understanding why clear initial task framing (as articulated intent provides) improves downstream decision quality.
Sweller, J., Ayres, P., & Kalyuga, S. (2011). Cognitive load theory. Springer.
Foundational text on cognitive load theory explaining how limited working memory capacity constrains learning and performance, and how instructional design can reduce extraneous load to optimize cognitive resources for productive effort. Establishes that unclear task structure imposes extraneous cognitive load that impairs performance. Directly applicable to understanding how ambiguous intent increases cognitive load by requiring simultaneous task interpretation and task execution, degrading quality of both.
Nelson, H. G., & Stolterman, E. (2014). The design way: Intentional change in an unpredictable world (2nd ed.). MIT Press.
Philosophical and practical exploration of design as intentional action oriented toward bringing desirable futures into being. Emphasizes the centrality of intent in design practice: designers begin with purposes or visions of what should exist and work toward realizing those intentions through making. Discusses how intent provides direction for design decisions while remaining open to discovery during execution. Relevant for understanding intent not as rigid specification but as guiding purpose enabling coherent action.
Simon, H. A. (1996). The sciences of the artificial (3rd ed.). MIT Press.
Classic work examining design, problem-solving, and artificial systems, including analysis of how decisions made at one stage constrain options at later stages. Introduces concept of "satisficing" (seeking satisfactory rather than optimal solutions given constraints) and discusses how problem representation affects solution approaches. Essential for understanding downstream decision-making: early choices establish contexts that shape later possibilities, making initial framing consequential for overall outcomes.
Hinson, J. M., Whitney, P., Wilson, C. G., & Nusbaum, A. T. (2019). Working memory loads differentially influence frame-induced bias and choice accuracy in risky decision making. PLOS ONE, 14(3), e0214571.
Experimental research demonstrating that cognitive load (particularly non-affective working memory load) increases susceptibility to framing effects and reduces decision accuracy. Finds that when cognitive resources are consumed by working memory demands, decision quality degrades. Relevant for understanding the cognitive cost of unclear intent: ambiguous task framing imposes cognitive load that impairs downstream decision quality, just as the slide's note warns.
Wiegers, K., & Beatty, J. (2013). Software requirements (3rd ed.). Microsoft Press.
Comprehensive practitioner guide to software requirements specification, explaining what effective specifications include, how to elicit requirements from stakeholders, how to document requirements clearly, and how poor requirements cause project failures. Provides concrete methods for translating vague goals into precise specifications that guide development. Relevant for understanding how intent articulation functions in professional technical practice and what constitutes effective specification.
Dorst, K. (2011). Frame innovation: Create new thinking by design. MIT Press.
Examines how problem framing—the way problems are conceptualized and structured—shapes solution possibilities. Discusses how reframing problems can enable innovative solutions that were not visible under original framing. Relevant for understanding that intent articulation is itself a framing activity: how one describes what one wants to achieve influences how one approaches achieving it. Emphasizes that framing requires explicit articulation to be examined and refined.
Boundaries of the Claim
The slide proposes that intent precedes execution as a beneficial principle for creative and technical work. This does not claim that all intent must be fully articulated before any work begins, that intent never changes during execution, or that iterative discovery through making has no value. Professional practice often involves cycles where initial intent guides early work, which reveals aspects requiring intent refinement, which guides subsequent work. The principle emphasizes that each work cycle benefits from intent clarity before that cycle's execution, not that perfect intent specification precedes all activity.
The example provided (subject, tone, style for a film scene) illustrates one possible specification structure but does not claim this is the only way to articulate intent or that all creative work requires exactly these dimensions. Different domains, project types, and working styles may benefit from different specification structures. The underlying principle—that articulating what one wants to achieve before selecting implementation approaches improves decision-making quality—applies broadly, but specific articulation practices remain context-dependent.
The cited note warns that unclear initial framing increases cognitive load and reduces outcome quality, referencing Philipsen's work on film education. This establishes that unclear framing has costs but does not specify optimal levels of specification detail, how much time to invest in intent clarification, or what constitutes "sufficient" clarity. These are judgment calls requiring consideration of project complexity, collaboration needs, timeline constraints, and uncertainty levels.
The framework does not address when intent should remain deliberately open versus when it should be precisely specified. Some creative exploration benefits from loose intent ("explore what is possible with these materials"), while implementation work benefits from precise intent ("build system matching these specifications"). The principle applies particularly to contexts where clear direction improves execution efficiency—not all contexts require or benefit from maximum specificity.
The claim that constraints support creativity, drawing on Philipsen's research, describes a consistent finding in creativity research but does not claim all constraints equally support creativity or that any level of constraint is beneficial. Overly restrictive constraints that eliminate meaningful choice can suppress creativity. The productive constraints are those that reduce overwhelming possibility space while preserving room for creative problem-solving—finding this balance requires judgment.
Reflection / Reasoning Check
1. Consider a recent project where work began before having a clear sense of what was to be achieved—perhaps writing started before clarifying an argument, designing began before defining requirements, or building commenced before specifying functionality. As work progressed, what kinds of questions or uncertainties repeatedly interrupted progress? When choices had to be made between alternatives, what made those choices difficult? Looking back, if time had been taken before starting to articulate intent more clearly—specifying not just subject matter but also tone, approach, audience, or purpose—which mid-work difficulties might have been prevented or reduced? What does this reveal about the relationship between upfront clarity and smooth execution?
This question tests whether students can recognize the connection between unclear intent and decision-making difficulties during execution. An effective response would identify specific types of uncertainties that arose during work (not knowing what to include, how to prioritize competing elements, what style to adopt, what success looks like), articulate how these uncertainties made choices difficult by leaving evaluation criteria undefined, and recognize that at least some difficulties stemmed from inadequate upfront clarification rather than from inherent complexity. The response should demonstrate understanding that time spent clarifying intent is not wasted time preceding "real work"—it is investment that enables more efficient execution by reducing mid-work ambiguity and decision paralysis.
2. Consider two approaches to starting a creative project: Approach A involves immediately beginning execution to "see what happens" and discovering direction through making, refining goals as work progresses. Approach B involves spending time before execution articulating what is to be achieved across multiple dimensions (subject, tone, audience, constraints, success criteria), then beginning execution guided by that articulation. What are the potential advantages and disadvantages of each approach? Under what circumstances might Approach A be more valuable? Under what circumstances might Approach B be more valuable? How might these approaches be combined—starting with Approach B's intent clarification, then using Approach A's discovery-through-making within that clarified intent? What does this suggest about the relationship between structure and exploration in creative work?
This question tests whether students understand that "intent precedes execution" does not eliminate discovery-through-making but rather frames it productively. An effective response would identify that Approach A enables unexpected discovery and avoids premature commitment but risks unfocused exploration and wasted effort on directions ultimately abandoned, while Approach B provides clear direction and efficient execution but risks missing discoveries that only emerge through making and may commit to goals that prove misaligned once work begins. The response should recognize that the approaches can be integrated: articulating preliminary intent before starting (establishing what is being discovered), then refining intent through iterative cycles of making and reflection. This demonstrates understanding that intent and exploration are not opposed—clear intent makes exploration more productive by giving it direction and purpose.