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In 90 seconds

Two people want to build something together: a relationship, a family, a project, or a business. What should they talk through before making an important decision?

Before We Build offers a map for that conversation. It helps people discuss commitments and boundaries, plans for the future, shared work, and how they understand each other. This is a research approach: it helps people ask questions, but does not diagnose them or decide whether they are compatible.

Who it is for

You can use the map with a partner, friend, relative, colleague, or cofounder. Start with a specific task: what do you want to do together, and what outcome do you need?

Consent must be freely given. Coercion, violence, and exploitation cannot be explained away as “different styles.” Safety matters at every stage.

Suppose you are considering a move

Both people want to move to another city. But one worries about who will help an elderly relative, while the other is thinking about opportunities five years from now. They also need to decide who will look for housing and which information about the new city they can trust.

These are different questions: about commitments, the future, shared effort, and understanding information. Discussing them separately makes them easier to address. Money, health, the needs of dependants, unequal power, and safety may change any decision.

Start with what happens

Notice words and actions: who asks questions, how tasks are divided, where misunderstandings arise, how people behave under pressure, and how they try to repair a relationship after an argument. These things can be observed. The internal process we propose to explain the behaviour cannot be seen directly.

Then consider possible explanations

The project explores three typologies as prompts for research: Temporistics for questions about time and direction, Psychosophy for organizing joint action, and Socionics for working with information. Values and moral obligations are considered separately.

Here “type” means a hypothesis about a recurring way of perceiving and organizing experience. It is not a personality type: it concerns how someone selects, orders, and interprets experience, beyond sensory perception alone. Read more about how the project reinterprets typologies. These explanations need to be tested and revised.

What else might explain it?

A disagreement may involve values, limited money or information, unequal power, a crisis, or a habit. Experience, culture, skills, roles, stress, and health also matter. Check these explanations before turning to typology.

What the map cannot tell you

A type does not determine moral character or dignity. It cannot establish whether a relationship is safe, whether people are ready for marriage, or whether a team will succeed. It does not predict destiny. Before We Build currently provides no numerical compatibility score.

Start the conversation

  • What exactly do we want to build together?
  • Which commitments cannot be traded away?
  • What have we actually observed, and what are we still assuming?
  • What might change our explanation of the disagreement?
  • Can each person freely consent and speak openly?

If you want to test the approach

Start with the validation programme: what does the project claim, and how could those claims be tested? Then read about the limits of inference and possible compatibility measurement. A claim's status matters more than a type label.

Where to go next