before we build — closing
The requirements are ready
Here is something worth naming before closing: the team now has the requirements. Not as a description of what to build — as a witnessed understanding of what needs to change, for whom, in which direction, and how they will know if it worked. That is what requirements actually are when they are done right.
Everything that preceded the brief — the Vision, the Mission, the Objective, the initiative, the observation, the trio conversation — was the work of becoming ready to write the requirements honestly. Most teams start with requirements. This team arrived at them.
Volume III — What We Build — begins at the moment the first Epic is named. The broken column in Gal's journey — "Enters and marks," marked ✗ — is ready to become an Activity Epic. The Amigos session will shape it into stories. The story gate will ensure what enters the sprint is specific enough to exit as something real — something that can be checked against the Prediction that was written before any of it started.
Most frameworks optimize for deciding what to build. This one optimizes for not losing the truth of the problem.
Gal still grades exams the way she always has. The brief is agreed on. The baseline is 47 minutes, measured on a Wednesday afternoon by someone who was in the room and watched her scroll back to correct student 24.
The understanding is intact. Now it crosses its first real boundary.