Initiatives
An initiative is the temporary work that answers one or more demands and changes one or more solutions. It is managed as a project, as small work or as urgent work; the mode decides its steps.
Modes and steps
- Managed as a project: Reviewing → Analyzing (lean business case, go/no-go) → Ready → Implementing (MVP, then Persevere) → Done.
- Managed as small work: Reviewing → Ready → Implementing → Done.
- Managed as urgent work: straight into Implementing, then Done; it may go over a WIP limit, and the overrun is recorded.
- An initiative moves one step at a time, forward or back. Not pursued closes it from any open step, with a reason. The mode can change; the change and the reason are written to its history.
Closing and work
Maintenance: each solution has a maintenance initiative per quarter (small work); defects that are not part of another item go there. When the quarter ends, its open work moves to the next quarter's initiative and the old one closes. Emergencies: declaring a production emergency opens an urgent demand and an urgent initiative; the emergency defect and its make-good task belong to it, and it closes only with a post-incident review — what happened, why tests did not catch it, what changes — which becomes a proposed lesson.
An initiative can be Done only when every work item of it is Done or Cancelled; its demands close when all their initiatives have closed. New top-level work picks its initiative on the New work form; work under a parent follows the parent's initiative. Make default sets the initiative new work of a solution goes to when none is chosen.