how we work · practice
Practice
Operational guides anchored to the canon. Each Practice page derives from a Volume section, takes 10–25 minutes, and tells you how to do the thing — with the failure modes named.
The Volumes are the canon. Practice pages are projections of the canon at the cognitive load you need when you're about to do the thing. Every Practice page declares derives_from: — the Volume anchor that owns the truth — so when the canon updates, the practice doesn't drift.
Shape
Every Practice page follows the same shape:
| Section | What it is |
|---|---|
| TL;DR | One paragraph. The thing in its smallest defensible form. |
| What it is | Definition. The artefact or activity. |
| Why it matters | What breaks without it. |
| How to do it | Step-by-step. Templates and checklists embedded or linked. |
| Evidence | What we know about this from our cycles or external research. |
| Anti-patterns | Common ways this goes wrong. Often pointed at a Clinic. |
| Further reading | The Volume part it derives from + adjacent Practice pages. |
Browse
Briefs & Discovery
- Writing Feature Briefs — what one cycle commits to change, trio-signed.
- Writing Initiative Briefs — the multi-cycle bet, with kill criterion.
- Writing Technical Design Briefs — the TL's translation: sequence, schema, API, the one ility.
- Writing predictions — the five-field discipline inside every brief.
Stories & Scope
- Story writing — one moment, five sections, the 9-point DoR.
- Holding amigos — 45 minutes, three roles, the Gherkin set.
ADRs & Technical Design
- Writing ADRs — one constrained choice, ≥2 options including do nothing, MADR format.
Releases & First 48h
- Release gate — a state, not a meeting. Three signals.
- First 48 hours watch — three roles watching dashboards, not tickets.
Checks & Signal
- Signal reading — five lines on the brief's check date.
- Retrospective — three questions, one change, owned dated testable.
- Model update — close one assumption, add one, sharpen one template.
Postmortems & Incidents
- Postmortem — bound to one incident, walks the chain, one chain-level fix.
Operations · Client cadence
- Weekly client update — Friday, three sections, under 200 words, the same shape every week.
- SLA review — quarterly contract conversation; three questions; not a sales meeting.
Operations · Daily
- Daily triage — 15 minutes; route yesterday's tickets as bug · brief input · noise.
- Helpdesk reading — five lines every Friday; theme, not count.
Operations · Portfolio governance
- Quarterly portfolio review — 90 minutes; three artefacts; at least one kill per quarter.
- Kill criterion — the discipline that converts an initiative from open-ended ambition into a time-bounded bet.
Clinics
Clinics are the corpus's anti-pattern teachers — corrupt artifacts with diagnoses. Each Practice page links to the Clinics that show its failure modes.