Delivery · Evolved from Dual-Track Agile
Dual-Track Agile with AI Guardrails
Parallel discovery and delivery tracks, with explicit gates for AI-affecting work: eval readiness, guardrail implementation, and monitoring before any delivery track item can ship.
Executive Guidance
How to hold this framework as a leader
Dual-track separates discovery from delivery so a team can both ship and learn. The framework's value is not the two tracks but the disciplined gate between them: nothing crosses into delivery without evidence, and nothing in delivery goes to customers without acceptance criteria.
In AI-era practice this gate is the eval set. Discovery-track prototypes that touch customers without an eval spec are the most common source of preventable customer harm.
When to Apply
- Teams shipping continuously while validating new opportunities
- Organizations introducing AI features into existing products
- Environments requiring both learning velocity and shipping discipline
AI-Era Notes
Discovery-track AI experiments must never leak into production without crossing delivery-track gates. The evaluation set is the artifact that transitions between tracks.
Key Trade-off
Discovery-track AI prototypes can leak into production without crossing evaluation gates.
Operating Sequence
The order in which to install the framework
- 01Structure the team into a discovery cadence and a delivery cadence with distinct rituals.
- 02Define the gate between them: what must be true for an idea to enter delivery.
- 03For AI-affecting work, require an eval spec and guardrails before the gate opens.
- 04Do not allow discovery-track prototypes to reach customers outside of a scoped test.
- 05Review track health separately; a stalled delivery is a different problem than a stalled discovery.
Key Artifacts
The documents this framework produces
Discovery Ritual Kit
Weekly touchpoint, assumption test, and synthesis cadence.
Owner: Product + Research
Track Gate Definition
Criteria that must be met to transition from discovery to delivery.
Owner: Product Leader
Delivery Definition of Done
Acceptance and eval criteria for release.
Owner: Product + Engineering
Operating Checklist
What "good" looks like when installed
Discovery Track
- Weekly customer touchpoint is calendared.
- Prototypes with real customers are scoped, timeboxed, and consented.
- Discovery outputs feed the assumption register.
Delivery Track
- Every delivery item has a PRD (and eval spec if AI-affecting).
- Release runbook including rollback is documented.
- Monitoring is instrumented before, not after, launch.
Common Antipatterns
- Discovery-track prototypes shipped to real customers without evals
- Delivery track blocked waiting for perfect discovery
Boardroom Questions
- Where has a discovery prototype crossed into production without a gate?
- Is our delivery track blocked waiting for discovery certainty that will never arrive?
- What is the health of each track separately?