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 twelve 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: 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] --> E[5. Build & Release Freeze]
    end
    subgraph Verify
        F[6. QA & Testing] -->|defects| G[7. Defect Handling]
        G --> F
    end
    subgraph Ship
        H[8. Tagging & Deployment] --> I[9. Release Close-out]
    end
    subgraph Operate
        J[11. Post-Production Monitoring] --> K[12. Production Support]
        K -->|urgent fix| L[10. Hotfix]
    end
    B --> C
    E --> F
    F -->|go-ahead| H
    H --> J
    L --> H

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	Build & Release Freeze	Freezing the release branch and handing a build to QA via a Build Ticket.
6	QA & Testing	Impact analysis, sanity, smoke, and regression testing.
7	Defect Handling	Fixing QA-found issues on the frozen release branch.
8	Tagging & Deployment	Tagging the approved release and deploying to production.
9	Release Close-out	Merging, deleting the branch, and closing the JIRA release.
10	Hotfix	The fast path for urgent production-only fixes.
11	Post-Production Monitoring	Watching dashboards and debugging live issues.
12	Production Support	Client-facing triage, escalation, and SLAs.