Word-Request: "Consider solutions" "Projectively alter"

Question

I'm editing someone's manuscript. It uses the phrase "projectively altering the politics", I believe, to mean thinking through possible strategies or considering various changes to a political situation.

This phrase projectively alter is really awkward but the idea is pretty simple. I think I must be forgetting a very common word. Strategizing?

I am looking for a word that means to think through possible changes to a situation and their consequences.

Hypothesizing kind of works, so does brainstorming, but are inspecific. Thought-experimenting carries the meaning well enough, though it's not an improvement and is just as awkward.

Example usage:

The engineer identified flaws in the current system. She ---- the set-up – thinking through various ways she could change it and what the effects of those changes would be – and developed a strategy for a revision.

Answer 1

One such word is weigh (typically preceded by carefully).

ODO:

weigh VERB

2 Assess the nature or importance of, especially with a view to a decision or action.
‘the consequences of the move would need to be very carefully weighed’

‘Nonetheless, he stressed that the matter would have to be carefully weighed by the government before any final decision could be made.’

Answer 2

I suggest:

Devise from Oxford living dictionary [WITH OBJECT]

1 Plan or invent (a complex procedure, system, or mechanism) by careful thought.

‘a training programme should be devised’

‘a complicated game of his own devising’

although, perhaps you really want to emphasize that it is only a test?

maybe devise a prototype

I'm not sure but re-devise is a bit stretched even if it fits the rules

( re-engineer might work although that might take something to a further stage of completion)

Edit/addition:

Commonly coupled words with devise are alternative and solution devise an alternative, devise a solution