200apps · how we work
The Five Volumes
Five volumes describe the chain end to end. Each volume is a phase. Each phase produces the artifact the next phase needs, and inherits the artifact the previous phase produced. Skipping a volume does not save time — it pushes the missing work into the volume that comes after, where it is more expensive to repair.
Volume I declares the change the organization exists to make. Volume II witnesses the problem and predicts what will change. Volume III turns the prediction into Epics, stories, and scenarios. Volume IV runs the prediction through code into production. Volume V checks what reality answers, names the gap, updates the model — and the next cycle inherits a sharper version of the understanding.
Volume I — Strategy & Direction
The work before the work begins. Vision becomes goals. Goals become initiatives. Initiatives are valued, financially translated, and held in a portfolio that can be funded, continued, or killed. The volume that makes the rest of the chain answerable to something.
Volume II — Discovery & Brief
Understanding the problem before solving it. Observation, not interview. Persons and moments, not personas and tasks. Journey mapping. Assumption surfacing. Three brief artifacts — Initiative, Feature, Technical Design — each one a written prediction with a check date.
Volume III — Scope & Shape
Translating prediction into shape. Epics named for activities. Story mapping. The walking skeleton — smallest end-to-end release that changes the situation. ADRs, sequence diagrams, schema, API contracts, ilities. Amigos sessions producing Gherkin scenarios trios can defend.
Volume IV — Execution
The prediction goes live. Domain language survives the trip from brief to code. Trunk-based flow. Conventional commits linked to stories. Feature flags wrap new behavior so rollback is one switch. The pipeline catches a different chain level at each stage. The release gate gives the prediction the conditions it needs to be checked.
Volume V — After We Build
The loop closing. The first 48 hours. Running the check. The four outcomes — only one of which has no value. Bug taxonomy. Postmortems that produce structural changes. The retrospective. The model update — the step most teams skip. The ongoing relationship. The team. The portfolio. Adoption.
Reading order
Linear, if you have time. The volumes are written to be read in sequence — each one assumes you have done the work of the previous one. If you read Volume IV without II, you will write code for a problem that was never witnessed.
Non-linear, if you are looking for a craft. Use the Master Areas index — every craft is mapped to the volume that addresses it.