How You Should Be Thinking in Stage 2 (Project Planning)
Stage 2 is where validated problems turn into commitments.
This is also where teams most often confuse activity with intent.
Stage 2 exists to force a decision about whether a problem is worth solving now, and under what constraints.
Your Job in Stage 2
Your job in Stage 2 is not to plan a solution.
It is to:
- decide what outcome actually matters
- decide what success looks like
- decide what will not be addressed
- decide whether the organisation is willing to commit
If these decisions are avoided, Stage 3 will be built on sand.
Problems Do Not Automatically Become Projects
A validated problem only proves one thing:
“Something real is happening.”
It does not prove that:
- it should be solved now
- it should be solved at all
- it should be solved with software
Stage 2 exists to make this distinction explicit.
Outcomes, Not Solutions
The most important discipline in Stage 2 is learning to think in outcomes.
Outcomes describe:
- what will be different
- for whom
- under what conditions
They do not describe:
- features
- tools
- workflows
- implementations
If an outcome implies a solution, it is not an outcome.
Commitment Creates Constraints
When you decide to proceed, you are doing more than approving work.
You are declaring:
- priority
- ownership
- acceptable tradeoffs
- success criteria
This commitment constrains everything downstream.
If commitment is vague, design will be vague.
What You Are Explicitly Deciding
Stage 2 forces clarity on questions teams often leave implicit:
- What problem are we committing to address?
- What problems are we explicitly not addressing?
- What outcomes define success?
- What assumptions are we making?
- What risks are we accepting?
If any of these are unclear, Stage 2 is not complete.
Common Traps
Watch for these failure modes:
- Treating outcomes as feature lists
- Expanding scope to avoid saying no
- Using effort estimates to justify commitment
- Assuming alignment without stating tradeoffs
These feel responsible.
They are avoidance.
Signals You Are Rushing
You are probably rushing Stage 2 if:
- success cannot be described without mentioning a solution
- scope keeps expanding "just in case"
- risks are described vaguely or optimistically
- people say "we’ll figure that out later"
Later is exactly when it becomes expensive.
What Good Looks Like
A good Stage 2 output:
- makes the commitment unambiguous
- defines success without prescribing implementation
- clearly states exclusions
- is uncomfortable in its specificity
If everyone is happy, something is missing.
The Discipline to Carry Forward
Stage 2 teaches a second habit:
Do not design until intent is explicit.
Without this discipline, Strategic Domain Design becomes speculative.
Next, we will look at How You Should Be Thinking in Stage 3 (Strategic Domain Design) — where clarity finally becomes structure.