Initiative
The change that answers one or more demands: its requirements, its work and its plan. It ends when the change is delivered.
What it is
An initiative is a piece of change with a beginning and an end: build the first release, add reminders, fix what broke last night. It holds the objectives, requirements and project constraints of that change, and all the work that delivers it.
It is managed in one of three modes: as a project (Reviewing, Analyzing, Ready, Implementing, Done), small work (Reviewing, Ready, Implementing, Done) or urgent work (straight to Implementing).
Why it matters
A solution lives for years; the changes to it come and go. Keeping each change in its own initiative shows what is being changed, why and by whom, and lets the portfolio limit how many changes run at once.
It also gives every change a clear end: an initiative is done when all its work is done; its requirements then become history, and what it built is described by the solution's design.
What goes wrong without it
- Everything sits in one long backlog, and nobody can say which work belongs to which request.
- Too many changes run at once, and none of them finishes.
- Requirements of finished work stay mixed with those of work still in progress.
What it gives an AI agent
An agent works for one initiative at a time. New work and requirements it proposes go to that initiative, so they never float free. When several initiatives are open and none is chosen, the agent asks the person once instead of guessing.
Example: Clinic Booking
| Weak | Strong |
|---|---|
| Clinic Booking backlog. | Initiative "Online booking — first release", managed as a project, answers the owner's demand for online booking; a later small-work initiative "Four-hour notice" answers the receptionists' demand. |
How it relates to the rest
- Answers one or more demands; can change one or more solutions.
- Holds objectives, requirements and project constraints; epics, stories and tasks belong to it.
- Its work carries the design changes that update the solution's design records.
In Corpole
- Shown on the Portfolio board; each step can have a WIP limit (urgent work may exceed it, and that is recorded).
- Closing gate: Done only when all its work is Done or Cancelled.
- Each solution has a quarterly maintenance initiative for defects; open work rolls over each quarter. An urgent initiative closes with a post-incident review that becomes a proposed lesson.
- The initiative picker in the top bar filters boards, work, planning, forecast and requirements. Agents choose one with
select_initiative.