In the process of assessing an relevance diagram, decomposing a node is the establishment of direct predecessor relations for a given frontier node, F, as a result of an indirect assessment. If the nodes, P₁, ..., P_n, that are to become direct predecessors already exist in the relevance diagram, the direct predecessor relations are established by linking P₁, ..., and P_n to F (as long as no cycles are created); if any node, P_i, in the set {P₁, ..., P_n} does not already exist in the diagram, it is first created and then linked to F.

See also: Relevant.