The Lifecycle

The lifecycle is the spine of this playbook: how work moves from an idea to running software that is monitored and supported. Each of the fourteen phases below is its own SOP page with a summary card, full detail, a diagram, and the templates it uses. Each page's summary card names the role that owns it.

The flow is intentionally a loop, not a straight line, with some work in parallel: test case design (ITCR) runs alongside development, QA and defect handling cycle until a build is clean, and post-production monitoring feeds issues back into support, hotfixes, and escaped-defect analysis.

flowchart TD
    subgraph Plan
        A[1. Backlog & Grooming] --> B[2. Planning & Estimation]
    end
    subgraph Build
        C[3. Branching & Version Control] --> D[4. Development & Code Review]
        T[5. Test Case Design & ITCR]
        D --> E[6. Build & QA Freeze]
        T --> E
    end
    subgraph Verify
        F[7. QA & Testing] -->|defects| G[8. Defect Handling]
        G --> F
    end
    subgraph Ship
        H[9. Tagging & Deployment] --> I[10. Release Close-out]
    end
    subgraph Operate
        J[12. Post-Production Monitoring] --> K[13. Production Support]
        K --> P[14. Issue Triage & Root Cause]
        J --> P
        P -->|urgent| L[11. Hotfix]
    end
    B --> C
    B --> T
    E --> F
    F -->|go-ahead| H
    H --> J
    L --> H
    P -->|scheduled| A

The phases

#	Phase	One line
1	Backlog & Grooming	Stories are clarified and made ready before planning.
2	Planning & Estimation	The team commits a realistic sprint backlog.
3	Branching & Version Control	How code is organized into release, feature, bug, and hotfix branches.
4	Development & Code Review	Writing code, tests, static analysis, and peer review.
5	Test Case Design & ITCR	QA writes the test plan and new cases, reviewed and approved by Development before the build.
6	Build & QA Freeze	Freezing the release branch and handing a build to QA via a Build Ticket.
7	QA & Testing	Impact analysis, sanity, smoke, and regression testing.
8	Defect Handling	Fixing QA-found issues on the frozen release branch.
9	Tagging & Deployment	Tagging the approved release and deploying to production.
10	Release Close-out	Merging, deleting the branch, and closing the JIRA release.
11	Hotfix	The fast path for urgent production-only fixes.
12	Post-Production Monitoring	Watching dashboards and debugging live issues.
13	Production Support	Client-facing triage, escalation, and SLAs.
14	Issue Triage & Root Cause	Root-cause and document any reported issue so nothing is lost before it is scheduled.