Phase 1 is what we call Strategic Planning. In Strategic Planning, executive leaders, product owners, technical experts, and other key stakeholders work to clarify the goals and identify the core complexity of a proposed initiative. This is the phase where you’re figuring out the vision for the initiative, doing high-level reference class forecasting, and testing the business case.
A big part of the work of Phase 1 is surfacing key assumptions and discerning which assumptions are complex and risky so you can focus on those first.
Phase 1 is complete when you’ve identified the core complexity of the initiative and decided it’s worth proceeding.
Sometimes, the work in phase 1 reveals that it’s not worth proceeding—the cost or risk is too high for the projected return. Better to discover that early and move on to something else.
