Product development process (DPPD)¶
Work in progress — Confluence is the source of truth
DPPD is still being rolled out (currently Draft v0.2, owned by Celina). This page is a short orientation for engineers; the canonical, maintained guides live in Confluence (space PP) and are linked below. When in doubt, follow Confluence.
DPPD takes an idea, problem or challenge and moves it through four steps into shipped work. It's adapted from the DPPD methodology created by Mark Ridley.
Discovery → Proposal → Plan → Delivery
| Step | Primary question | Output | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Discovery | What is the problem, and what matters? | Understanding (messy, informal) | Product |
| Proposal | What are we choosing to do, and why? | A proposal document | Product (reviewed by requesting team) |
| Plan | How will we implement this? | The delivery plan | Engineering (with Product + UX) |
| Delivery | How do we ship and operate it? | Code, tests, tickets, releases | Engineering |
A guiding principle: Plans adapt; Proposals endure. Each guide is a thinking scaffold, not a template to fill in — skip sections that don't apply.
Right-sizing: not everything runs the full flow¶
Match the weight of the process to the weight of the work:
- Full flow — significant or ambiguous work: Discovery → Proposal → Plan → Delivery.
- Lightweight — intent is clear but a recorded decision helps: skip Discovery, short Proposal or a lightweight Plan, then deliver.
- Ticket only — small, unambiguous fixes/features: just a ticket, no Discovery or Proposal.
If you're unsure which path something needs, that uncertainty is itself a signal — it probably wants at least a short Discovery.
Where Delivery meets this repo¶
The Delivery stage is where DPPD hands off to the day-to-day engineering process documented on this site:
- Plans become epics and tickets — see Ticket lifecycle.
- Tickets follow PR reviews and Branching & releases.
The guides (Confluence)¶
| Guide | What it covers |
|---|---|
| How We Run DPPD | The overarching guide: the four steps, the funnel, intake, right-sizing, roles, cadence, and how decisions are logged. |
| Writing a Discovery | How to run and write up the first stage. |
| Writing a Proposal | What to do and why — intent, boundaries, success. |
| Writing a Plan | How a Proposal gets implemented. |
| Ticket Standard: Writing Delivery Tickets | How to write Jira tickets in the Delivery stage. |
Open items still being settled (as of Draft v0.2)
- How fixed client dates are expressed at Proposal stage without undermining the Proposal's intent.
- Whether a dedicated Delivery guide is needed alongside the other three.
- How design/UX discovery runs alongside stakeholder discovery and feeds Proposals.
Because these are unresolved, treat the Confluence pages as live and check them rather than relying on this summary for detail.