SPEEDBOAT
Start less. Learn faster. Land more.
The core question: What meaningful thing are we landing this week, and what do we need to learn or finish to make that happen?
WORK LANES + OUTCOMES
PREVIEW, BUILD, and RUN are the work lanes.
LAND is the outcome layer: the moment meaningful work reaches its intended beneficiary.
PREVIEW: Quick prototypes, PoCs, or demos to learn and enable conversations. Max 3 active. 1–5 day timebox. Decision every Friday: kill, park, continue, or promote. Two types: Discovery (should we build this?) and Demo (make it real for Sales/customers).
BUILD: Production-grade capability work. Max 3 active. Quality bar unchanged. Sources: promoted Previews, committed roadmap, customer needs, platform necessities.
LAND: The outcome layer. A Landing is what we log when work reaches its intended beneficiary. Every Landing has a type, a beneficiary, and an outcome. | Customer | Business | Platform | Decision | |—|—|—|—| | Feature live, beta, fix deployed | Demo ready, GTM enabled | Debt removed, risk reduced | Preview killed/parked with learning |
RUN: Visible operational work. Split reactive (incidents, escalations) and proactive (debt, upgrades, automation). Aim ≤20%. Track honestly.
RHYTHM
| Mon | Set Course (30 min) | What are we landing this week? Confirm WIP. Set ownership. |
| Wed | Course Check (15 min) | Still on track? Unblock or adjust scope now. |
| Fri | The Landing (30 min) | What landed? Decide every Preview. Capture learning. |
| 2 wks | Route Planning (60 min) | Shape upcoming work. What needs Preview before Build? |
PRINCIPLES
- Customer impact is the unit of progress
- Start less work than we think we can
- Preview cheaply, decide quickly
- Build fewer things at once
- Prioritise Landing over starting
- Make Run work visible
- Use AI aggressively, but keep human ownership
- Product owns value; Engineering owns production readiness
- In short weeks, reduce scope, not discipline
TWO RULES
Landing mix — At least some Customer or Business Landings in any 4-week window. Platform-heavy by accident is a signal to course-correct.
Exception protocol — WIP limits can flex for urgent Run or escalations, but the team names what is paused to make room. Urgent Run doesn’t violate Speedboat; hiding it does.
QUICK REFERENCE
| If you’re thinking… | It’s a… |
|---|---|
| “I don’t know if we should build this” | Preview (Discovery) |
| “Sales needs something to show” | Preview (Demo) |
| “We’ve committed to building this properly” | Build |
| “This broke / this is urgent” | Run (Reactive) |
| “We should fix this before it breaks” | Run (Proactive) |
| “This reached someone who benefits” | Landing — log it |
| “Not sure” | Probably a Preview |