after we build · part ten

Adoption

How to start. Which practice first. What the first cycle feels like. What resistance looks like and what it means. What maturity looks like — and how long it takes to get there.

How to start

The chain has five volumes and dozens of practices. If you start with everything, you will abandon everything. The system does not fail because it is wrong. It fails because it is too heavy to start. The team will be overwhelmed, the practices performed as ceremony without understanding, and within two months the conclusion will be "it doesn't work for us."

Start with one practice.

The minimum viable chain is two steps: write a prediction before the cycle, check it after. That's it. No briefs, no story maps, no bug taxonomy, no model updates. Just: before we build this, what do we think will happen? After we build it, did it happen?

The prediction and the check. Everything else in the chain exists to make the prediction more accurate and the check more honest — but the loop itself is what creates the learning.

1 · Prediction + check

Write one prediction before the next feature. Check it 30 days after release. See what you learn. This takes 20 minutes total. It changes everything that follows.

2 · Add the brief

For the next feature, write a Feature Brief before shaping starts. Observe someone. Write what you saw. This is the hardest practice to adopt — because it requires going to watch. It is also the practice with the highest return.

3 · Add the amigos session

Before a developer pulls a story, three people sit for 45 minutes and write scenarios. This catches the gaps that would otherwise surface as production bugs.

4 · Add the retrospective with the three questions

At the end of the cycle, ask: what held, what broke, what is the one change? The one change is what carries forward.

5 · Add the model update

After the retrospective, write down what changed. Update the artifacts. Now the chain is compounding.

Each step builds on the last. The team adds a practice when the previous one is habitual — not when someone says it's time, but when the team notices the gap the next practice would fill.

Continue — What resistance looks like, what maturity looks like →