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Engineering Stage

ES-103 — Activities

Create the planning evidence package that turns requirements into organized engineering work.

Planning Work Evidence Production Next: Evidence

ES-103 Activities

Purpose

This page guides the planning work for ES-103.

Complete the activities in order. Iterate when dependencies, risks, estimates, ownership questions, or review findings reveal earlier weakness.

Activity 1 — Create planning overview

Create:

docs/planning/planning_overview.md

Use:

template-library/planning/planning_overview.md

Summarize the ES-102 requirements baseline, planning assumptions, known constraints, planning objective, and major uncertainties.

Evidence produced

Bridge evidence from requirements to planning.

Activity 2 — Build work breakdown structure

Create:

docs/planning/work_breakdown_structure.md

Use:

template-library/planning/work_breakdown_structure.md

Break the work into deliverable-oriented work packages. Each work package should identify source requirement or constraint, owner, dependencies, evidence produced, risk exposure, review point, and estimate.

Evidence produced

Work decomposition evidence.

Activity 3 — Define milestones

Create:

docs/planning/milestones.md

Use:

template-library/planning/milestones.md

Define meaningful readiness checkpoints. Do not create milestone dates without evidence criteria. A milestone should say what must be true before the project continues.

Evidence produced

Sequencing and checkpoint evidence.

Activity 4 — Assign roles and responsibilities

Create:

docs/planning/roles_and_responsibilities.md

Use:

template-library/planning/roles_and_responsibilities.md

Assign ownership for work packages, reviews, evidence, risk, AI verification, operations concerns, governance touchpoints, and readiness decisions.

Evidence produced

Accountability evidence.

Activity 5 — Create risk register

Create:

docs/planning/risk_register.md

Use:

template-library/planning/risk_register.md

Identify risks, likelihood, impact, mitigation, owner, and trigger. Include risks from requirements, constraints, AI use, data, verification, security, privacy, operations, governance, schedule, and stakeholder access.

Evidence produced

Risk management evidence.

Activity 6 — Map dependencies

Create:

docs/planning/dependency_map.md

Use:

template-library/planning/dependency_map.md

Identify upstream and downstream dependencies between requirements, constraints, work packages, architecture decisions, reviews, external systems, data, environments, approvals, and evidence.

Evidence produced

Dependency evidence.

Activity 7 — Record estimates

Create:

docs/planning/estimation_record.md

Use:

template-library/planning/estimation_record.md

Estimate work using honest effort bands. Record uncertainty rather than hiding it. When an estimate is unstable, define the investigation needed to reduce uncertainty.

Evidence produced

Estimation evidence.

Activity 8 — Review the plan

Create:

docs/planning/planning_review.md

Use:

template-library/planning/planning_review.md

Review for missing work, unowned work, unrealistic estimates, hidden dependencies, missing evidence, unmanaged risks, unsupported commitments, and AI-generated false confidence.

Evidence produced

Planning review evidence.

Activity 9 — Complete planning readiness summary

Create:

docs/planning/planning_readiness_summary.md

Use:

template-library/planning/planning_readiness_summary.md

Summarize completed artifacts, unresolved issues, planning risks, major dependencies, readiness for ES-104, and architecture implications.

Evidence produced

Transition evidence from planning to architecture.

planning_overview.md
  ↓
work_breakdown_structure.md
  ↓
milestones.md
  ↓
roles_and_responsibilities.md
  ↓
risk_register.md
  ↓
dependency_map.md
  ↓
estimation_record.md
  ↓
planning_review.md
  ↓
planning_readiness_summary.md

Quality checks while working

Check that every major work package traces to a requirement, constraint, risk, review obligation, evidence obligation, or platform obligation.

Check that every major risk has an owner.

Check that every milestone has evidence criteria.

Check that estimates show uncertainty when uncertainty exists.

Check that ES-104 will receive the planning evidence it needs to begin architecture responsibly.

AI assistance

Use AI to identify hidden work, missing dependencies, unmanaged risks, weak estimates, and work packages that lack evidence outputs. Do not use AI to create artificial certainty. The team owns the plan.

Common pitfall

Do not treat estimates as promises. Treat them as planning evidence with uncertainty.

Engineering insight

The WBS is the decomposition of engineering obligations. If the WBS does not reflect the requirements, constraints, risks, and evidence obligations, it is not yet an engineering plan.

Continue to Evidence

Review what counts as sufficient ES-103 planning evidence.

Continue to Evidence →