PLAY- VALIDATE – The Assumptions Behind Your Program

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PLAY- VALIDATE – The Assumptions Behind Your Program

Every graduate program runs on assumptions about its learners, faculty, employers, and alumni that get treated as settled fact instead of what they are: untested claims. VALIDATE is a four-step method — state the assumption, convert it into a falsifiable hypothesis, match the method to the stakes, and assign it to the right person — for finding out which of those assumptions are load-bearing, and which ones have simply never been tested.

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Play: The Post-Graduation Intelligence System

PLAY: [PULSE] The Post-Graduation Intelligence System

Graduate programs often fail to collect post-graduation intelligence, retiring the Bridge Matrix at graduation and relying on stale intake-year data. The PULSE framework fixes this by running the matrix on a standing cadence—at years one, three, five, ten, and beyond—comparing curriculum targets, re-surveyed employer expectations, and actual alumni capabilities. By utilizing conversations and focus groups rather than surveys alone, programs can identify gaps, blind spots, and over-achieved competencies. Translating these findings into four actionable verbs enables curriculum committees to make targeted adjustments, replacing instinct with longitudinal evidence.

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Play: The Bridge Matrix

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Most graduate programs run three conversations that never touch: what learners need, what curriculum teaches, and what employers expect on day one. The Bridge Matrix is a single tool — built on Bloom’s Taxonomy — that plots all three on one grid, so the gaps between them become visible instead of assumed. This Play walks through how to build the matrix, read it, and run it twice: once to plan a curriculum cycle, and again to prove what changed.