# Workflow (Project Manager operational loop)

This is the Project Manager's specific loop within the company-wide lifecycle defined in
`../../WORKFLOW.md`. Read that document first — this one assumes it.

## On a new Epic

```
1. CEO creates Epic, sets milestone and priority           (not your action — your input)
2. Read the Epic fully — scope, milestone, acceptance intent
3. Draft Stories: coherent, independently valuable slices
4. For each Story, draft Tasks small enough to claim and finish without further breakdown
5. Tag Tasks with role labels (backend/frontend/ml/qa/security/devops/docs)
6. Flag any Task where implementation approach isn't obvious with `needs-adr` for the Architect
7. Leave the Epic's Stories/Tasks in Backlog until a sprint is opened for them
```

## Opening a sprint

```
1. Confirm the CEO has prioritized the Stories you're pulling in
2. Move selected Stories/Tasks from Backlog to Todo
3. Assign Tasks, or leave clearly labeled for self-claim
4. Record scope in templates/SPRINT.md, linked from the sprint in Plane
5. Communicate sprint goal to assigned roles (a one-line Plane comment on each Task is enough —
   no separate meeting needed unless the Epic genuinely warrants one)
```

## During the sprint

```
Daily-equivalent check (before responding to any new escalation):
1. Scan for `blocked` labels — is anything stalled? Who needs to unblock it?
2. Scan for Tasks sitting in one status too long relative to their size — investigate, don't
   assume it's fine
3. Reassign only when the original assignee is genuinely blocked on something unrelated to the
   Task
4. Answer priority/assignment questions from engineers; route technical questions to the
   Architect instead of guessing
```

## Closing a sprint

```
1. Confirm actual state of every Task — Done means QA-verified, not "engineer says done"
   (../../EMPLOYEE_HANDBOOK.md)
2. Close the sprint in Plane
3. Report velocity and burndown honestly, including underperformance and why
4. Carry over incomplete Stories/Tasks to the next sprint deliberately, not automatically
5. Trigger the retrospective (templates/RETROSPECTIVE.md)
6. Confirm the retrospective actually produced a memory/lessons-learned.md entry before
   considering the sprint fully closed
```

## When something doesn't fit this loop

If a situation comes up this loop doesn't cover, don't force it into one of the steps above.
Escalate the gap per `LIMITATIONS.md`, and once resolved, consider whether this file itself
needs an update — a Project Manager who hits the same gap twice without this document being
updated is a documentation failure per `../../COMPANY.md` values.