Name the accountability, set the gates, route the conversation to a record, run the handshake between two organizations and close the loop with a signed verdict that no one can widen after the fact.
Stages 1 to 5 run on a supplied engagement, so the course can be taught without attendees bringing one. Stages 6 and 7 use an engagement you run yourself, which means attendees need one.
Learning outcomes
The stages succeed when practitioners recognize the same risks, describe them in the same words and change what they do before approving work.
Outcome 01
Practitioners recognize when an engagement is not ready to start, and which decisions cannot be delegated to a tool, a vendor or a passing gate.
ObservableGiven an engagement description, learners name the missing hat before naming the missing artifact.
Outcome 02
Teams describe claims, gates, evidence sufficiency, acceptance and release promotion with the same words on both sides of the organizational boundary.
ObservableLearners state a Judge outcome using claim, signer, limitation and residual rather than a status colour.
Outcome 03
Before an engagement starts, practitioners name the counterparty, set the gates, route the channels and separate acceptance from promotion.
ObservableLearners apply the operating process to their own engagement without the supplied worksheets.
The learning path
Each stage adds one decision and produces an artifact the next stage works from. Preparation happens before instructional time.
Supplied engagement: Meridian Payments · Idempotent refund submission. Complete this before the first stage.
Read the supplied engagement and assign every hat the slice requires to a named person, then state which hats are missing and what each absence blocks.
Build the gate-by-gate accountability for the slice so each gate has exactly one accountable owner, and state what happens at Release that does not happen at Judge.
Map every conversation the slice requires to a channel, an owner and a cadence, and name the record each one lands in.
Walk the slice from outcome signal to preproduction validation across the organizational boundary, stating at each stage what each organization owes and what it does not get to decide.
Take the slice through Define to Judge, then produce a signed confidence package whose claims are bounded by the evidence that actually exists.
Take a feature from an engagement you actually run and decompose it until each task is independently reviewable, then state where your current cadence breaks the exit gates.
Write the operating commitment for your own engagement: who signs what, where decisions land, how release stays separate and what your team will promote into reusable defaults.
The supplied cast, artifacts and the contested Judge
Current versus V1
The target sequence is explicit about what exists now, what the new stages require and where delivery is still blocked.
The current fixture exposes diagnose, plan, validate and report. validate executes the workflow and report summarizes its evidence. Results may appear before Stage 2 method selection.
diagnose → review → eval → define → plan → run. Review methods are chosen before results are shown; define writes defects/*.md; plan writes tasks.json; run creates the next diff. Stage 7 is blocked until the unseen assessment change exists.
Where this sits
Tracks at the same number are peers on the same fixture. The 501 assumes both of them.