How We Work

June 1, 2026 · View on GitHub

⚠️ This is sample data. The team, processes, and details below are fictional — they exist so the Process Analyzer workflow has realistic content to work with. Replace this entire document with your actual team's processes before using the workflow in production.

Living document. This describes how the team operates day-to-day. When processes change — whether by explicit decision or organic drift — update this doc so it stays accurate. The Process Analyzer workflow watches meeting transcripts for changes and opens PRs to keep this up to date.

Team

NameRoleFocus
Sarah ChenEngineering ManagerSprint planning, stakeholder sync, risk management
Marcus JohnsonSenior Backend EngineerAPIs, data infrastructure, performance
Priya PatelFrontend EngineerUI components, design system, accessibility
David KimQA LeadTest strategy, smoke testing, release sign-off
Alex RiveraDevOps EngineerCI/CD, infrastructure, monitoring
Jordan TaylorProduct DesignerUX research, prototyping, design reviews

Meeting Cadence

Daily Standup

  • When: Every weekday, 9:00 AM (10 min max)
  • Format: Round-robin — each person shares: yesterday, today, blockers
  • Facilitator: Sarah Chen
  • Where: Video call (recorded, transcript auto-pushed to /transcripts/)

Sprint Planning

  • When: Every other Monday, 10:00 AM (1 hour)
  • Participants: Full team
  • Process:
    1. Review velocity from previous sprint
    2. Groom and estimate backlog items
    3. Commit to sprint scope
    4. Identify dependencies and risks

Sprint Retrospective

  • When: Every other Friday, 3:00 PM (45 min)
  • Format: Start / Stop / Continue
  • Action items: Logged as issues with retro-action label

Design Review

  • When: Wednesdays, 2:00 PM (30 min, as needed)
  • Participants: Jordan, Priya, Sarah
  • Process: Walk through designs, collect feedback, approve or iterate

Stakeholder Sync

  • When: Fridays, 11:00 AM (30 min)
  • Participants: Sarah + stakeholders
  • Purpose: Launch status, risk escalation, priority alignment

Ritual Cadence

Expected ceremonies and how to detect they happened. The Process Analyzer workflow checks this table weekly and reports which rituals are on track, overdue, or emerging informally.

RitualCadenceEvidenceGrace Period
Daily StandupDaily (weekdays)transcript filename contains standup1 day
Sprint PlanningBiweekly (Monday)transcript filename contains sprint-planning or planning3 days
Sprint RetrospectiveBiweekly (Friday)transcript filename contains retro3 days
Design ReviewWeekly (Wednesday)transcript filename contains design-review or design5 days
Stakeholder SyncWeekly (Friday)transcript filename contains stakeholder5 days
Stale Issue ReviewMonthly (1st Monday)issue with stale-review label or transcript mention10 days

Issue Triage

New Issue Triage

  • When: Daily, after standup
  • Who: Sarah (DRI), with input from relevant engineers
  • Process:
    1. Review all unlabeled issues opened in the last 24 hours
    2. Classify by type: bug, enhancement, question, documentation
    3. Assign priority: P0 (drop everything), P1 (this sprint), P2 (next sprint), P3 (backlog)
    4. Assign to an engineer or leave unassigned for sprint planning
    5. Add to the Launch Tracker project board if related to an active launch

Bug Triage

  • P0 bugs: Assigned immediately, Slack alert in #incidents
  • P1 bugs: Added to current sprint
  • P2/P3 bugs: Queued for sprint planning

Stale Issue Review

  • When: Monthly (first Monday)
  • Process: Close issues with no activity in 60+ days after confirming with assignee

Sprint / Iteration Cadence

  • Sprint length: 2 weeks
  • Sprint starts: Monday
  • Sprint ends: Friday
  • Velocity tracking: Issue count + story points
  • Scope changes: Mid-sprint scope changes require Sarah's approval and are logged as unplanned work

Decision-Making

  • Technical decisions: Made by the engineer doing the work, with review from a second engineer
  • Architectural decisions: Require team discussion in standup or a dedicated sync. Logged in /decisions/ via the Decision Log workflow
  • Product decisions: Sarah has final call, with input from Jordan (design) and stakeholders
  • Process: Decisions are documented with context, options considered, and rationale

PR Review Process

  • All PRs require at least one review before merge
  • Review SLA: 24 hours for normal PRs, 4 hours for P0 fixes
  • Auto-assign: PRs are auto-assigned to a reviewer via CODEOWNERS
  • Draft PRs: Use drafts for work-in-progress; convert to ready when seeking review
  • Merge strategy: Squash and merge (keeps history clean)
  • CI must pass before merge — no force-merging over failures

On-Call & Incident Response

  • Rotation: Weekly, rotating through Marcus → Alex → Priya → David
  • Responsibilities:
    • Monitor #alerts Slack channel
    • Acknowledge incidents within 15 minutes during business hours
    • Page the team for P0 incidents outside business hours
  • Incident process:
    1. Acknowledge in Slack
    2. Create a GitHub issue with incident label
    3. Investigate and mitigate
    4. Post-mortem within 48 hours (filed as a decision record)

Communication Norms

  • Slack: Real-time questions, quick decisions, social
  • GitHub Issues: All tracked work, decisions, and long-form discussion
  • GitHub Discussions: RFCs, proposals, team announcements
  • Email: External stakeholder communication only
  • Async by default: Don't expect instant replies outside of incidents. Prefer issues/PRs over Slack for anything that needs a record.

Automation & Tooling

Currently Automated

ProcessToolTrigger
Transcript → issue commentsTranscript Processor workflowPush to /transcripts/
Decision extractionDecision Log workflowWeeknights after each workday
Launch readiness reportsLaunch Readiness workflowWeekly (Monday ~8:30 AM)
Compliance reviewsCompliance Review workflowWeekly (Monday ~8 AM) + on issue labeled
Compliance team reportsCompliance Team Reports workflowWeekly (Monday ~8:45 AM)
GTM content draftsGTM Content workflowWeekly (Monday ~8:15 AM)
GTM team reportsGTM Team Reports workflowWeekly (Monday ~8 AM)
Assumption surfacingAssumption Surfacer workflowOn issue opened/edited
Weekly status rollupWeekly Status workflowWeekly (Friday)
Workflow health monitoringWorkflow Health workflowWeekly (Friday)
Commitment reconciliationCommitment Reconciler workflowWeekly (Monday)
Strategy alignment analysisStrategy Alignment workflowWeekly (Wednesday ~8 AM)
Decision challengeAdversarial PM workflowWeekly (Wednesday ~8:30 AM)
Process analysis & retroProcess Analyzer workflowWeekly (Monday night / early Tuesday UTC)
Ritual cadence trackingProcess Analyzer workflowWeekly (part of retro)
Intake request triageIntake Request Triage workflowOn issue labeled triage-needed
Standup preparationDaily Standup Prep workflowMonday/Wednesday
Sample data generationSample Data SimulatorSunday and Tuesday nights

Manual Processes (Candidates for Automation)

ProcessCurrent OwnerNotes
Issue triage & labelingSarahAutomated — see Intake Request Triage workflow below
Sprint velocity reportingSarahManual spreadsheet export; could use a scheduled workflow
Stale issue cleanupSarahMonthly manual review; could be a scheduled workflow
On-call rotation schedulingAlexManual Google Calendar updates
Release notes compilationPriyaManual before each GA launch
Dependency update reviewMarcusManual Dependabot PR review

Tool Stack

CategoryTool
Source controlGitHub
Project managementGitHub Projects
CI/CDGitHub Actions
CommunicationSlack + GitHub Discussions
MonitoringGrafana + custom dashboards
Incident managementPagerDuty → Slack → GitHub Issues
DesignFigma
DocumentationMarkdown in-repo