Deep dive · Working with LoopsWork

Make the loops part of everyday work.

Responsibilities, agents, and tools support the same connected system: build reliably, evaluate impact, and improve how you work. Choose the question you want to clarify.

BUILD · VALUE · LEARNING

Who owns what?

Five human responsibilities, six agent profiles, and their boundaries.

BUILD

What does the Workmaster do?

Implement small, agreed changes with clear criteria and human ownership.

BUILD · VALUE · LEARNING

When is a conversation needed?

Flow Check, Refinement, Spec Clinic, Acceptance Slot, Value Review, and learning rituals.

BUILD · VALUE · LEARNING

How do Jira, Confluence & other tools help?

Pitches, specs, small tickets, and agent tasks within the complete loop.

BUILD · VALUE · LEARNING

How do multiple teams work together?

Connect shared direction with autonomous teams across streams.

BUILD → VALUE → LEARNING

How does the system stay reliable?

Embed monitoring, alerting, and resilience in specs, acceptance, and learning.

BUILD · LEARNING

Which model and context fit the task?

Distinguish reasoning effort, capability, and autonomy.

BUILD · VALUE · LEARNING

How do the individual steps work?

All steps, handoffs, evidence, and feedback connections in the explorer.

BUILD · VALUE · LEARNING

Which working documents do I need?

Use templates, specs, prompts, and the scorecard.

Specs and prompts

Start with an agreed, versioned spec. Give agents bounded tasks with clear evidence.

Specs

Agreement, examples, versioning, and template.

Prompts

Agent tasks and prompt workshop.

04 / WORKING RHYTHM

Short rituals. Concrete feedback.

Starting points for a pilot. Decisions can also follow new findings between rituals.

See rituals, cadence, and responsibilities →

05 / INVESTMENT BEFORE STARTING

Set a budget. Keep the scope flexible.

PO and team clarify investment limits with the responsible people. These may be set by company strategy, the board or a higher-level initiative. The limits bound the investment; they do not promise every desired feature within that investment.

B1 · Before starting

Clear boundaries

Agree on human effort, AI costs, expected benefit and checkpoints. Consider capacity and calendar duration separately.

Example assumption: at most 5 team working days and a €50 AI budget for the first useful cart. Review at halfway consumption.

Spec Clinic · When limits are tight

Preserve the useful core

Postpone convenience, variants or additional features; simplify workflows and shape smaller deliveries. Feature Partner and PO confirm the changed spec.

Price correctness, stock limits, security and necessary tests remain binding. The budget is not silently increased.

At the checkpoint

Decide deliberately how to continue

Continue with smaller scope or stop within the mandate; have the responsible authority explicitly confirm new limits. The decision, reason and owner remain visible.

The Value Loop then checks the benefit of the released change. Its measurement period is agreed separately.

06 / EVERYDAY OPERATIONS

Bug fixes and small tasks also pass through the loops.

The depth of clarification depends on risk and uncertainty. A small task needs a clear brief and evidence – often on a single work card.

Bugfix

Reproduce the failure, reference the agreed expected behaviour, add a regression test, fix and review. If the expected behaviour is unclear, briefly clarify it with the Feature Partner.

Value: Check recovery using failure or operational data. This usually does not require a new Feature Scorecard.

Small tasks & support

Record the desired outcome, owner, budget and acceptance criterion on the work card. Pull work within the available work limit; review according to risk and complete it.

Example: A help text correction needs a visual check; a small permission change also needs targeted access tests.

Active incident

The incident owner coordinates diagnosis, containment and recovery. Urgent work visibly takes priority; identify the work being paused.

Keep required approvals and rollback arrangements clear. Complete evidence, the spec and regression tests after stabilisation.

  1. Review incoming work · B1The team reviews impact, urgency and the available work limit. The PO helps with competing priorities; an active incident does not wait for a ritual.
  2. Clarify the essentials · B2–B4Agree on actual/expected behaviour, reproduction or an example, the affected rule, a test case, and time and AI limits. Use the existing spec; extend it if needed.
  3. Implement a small change · B5–B8Create appropriate evidence, make a small change, test and review independently. AI agents receive a bounded brief, suitable AI skills and relevant AI context.
  4. Complete · B9–B10 / ValueBusiness feedback appropriate to risk, controlled release and operational checks. Brief asynchronous evidence may suffice; do not wait for the next Acceptance Slot.
  5. Learn from patterns · L1–L6Gather recurring bugs, interruptions or manual routines. Examine a relevant pattern in the retrospective and try one experiment.

Make capacity for everyday operations visible

The team uses experience to allow for support and operational work in its planning, limits parallel work and reviews the arrangement regularly. A new urgent task visibly displaces another; it is not silently promised on top. If scope grows, reprioritise or split it into a separate change.

Flow Check: ongoing work and blockers. Spec Clinic: a specific uncertainty or budget pressure. Value Review every 4 weeks: impact and trends. Recurring individual failures feed into Learning.

Template for an operational work card · View the example timeline