The first services phase
Define the first workflow. Establish the baseline.
Start with a task your team can inspect and a decision it can make. Connect the reviewed inputs to the first increment and the evidence your team will use to judge it.
Starting at $100k+ · Scoped engagement
Sprint Zero is an initial phase within the services engagement. The proposal defines its duration and deliverables.
01
Bring the work, not just the idea.
Choose a task that matters to the team and gather its current inputs and outputs.
- Representative cases, including known failures
- Workflow constraints and integration dependencies
- A reviewer who can explain what a useful output must get right
02
Turn competing requests into one first scope.
Review priorities and assumptions with the people affected. Record what the first increment will answer and what belongs outside it.
workflow: one chosen task
constraints: inputs, tools, reviewer responsibilities
open questions: assumptions still to test
first decision: what the increment should establish03
Give the first revision a fair comparison.
Agree representative cases and criteria, then record current behavior. A baseline case pack and reviewer judgments are examples of artifacts to scope, not fixed package deliverables.
case: a representative input
current output: the behavior today
reviewer judgment: accepted, failed or unresolved
criterion: the constraint the output must satisfy04
Agree the increment and its review.
Define the first working deliverable in the proposal and how it will be evaluated. At review, use the evidence to proceed, revise or stop, and record the next scope.