Run the handshake
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.
Handshake map
Artifacts cross the boundary. Decision rights do not.
No stage gives the delivery organization a client decision, or the reverse.
Supplied engagementMeridian Payments · Idempotent refund submissionheadless sliceStages 6 and 7 leave the fixture and use an engagement you run yourself.
Why this stage exists
Two organizations share context and evidence and keep separate decision rights. Most delivery friction is a decision that crossed the boundary without anyone noticing.
The supplied engagement has a readiness stage that was skipped. Stage 4 finds what that costs.
What you start from
Work from these inputs only. Anything not on this list is either a later stage’s concern or a decision you do not own.
- Channel map
- Your completed routing from stage 3.
- The handshake
- Section 05 of the operating process, nine stages and the confidence gate.
- The engagement artifacts
- Outcome signal, product spec, technical spec, evaluation plan.
Artifacts cross the boundary. Decision rights do not.
One worked pass, so the shape of the work is visible before you do it on your own.
- Walk the stages from readiness to live validation for this slice.
- For each, write what delivery owes and what the client owes.
- Mark where a decision would be crossing the boundary, and correct it.
- Reach the confidence gate and list the claims waiting there.
What this turns onThe delivery organization builds and proves. The client organization accepts and promotes. The merge gate is a review point inside delivery and signs nothing.
Do the work
- Complete the handshake map for the supplied slice.
- Write the readiness row that was skipped, including the baselines and the grounded trial feature.
- Identify the domain knowledge the pod cannot supply itself and who owes it.
- Name one place where the supplied engagement lets a decision cross the boundary.
You produce
Handshake map
- Stage
- Accountable role
- Delivery owes
- Client owes
- Decision that must not cross
Challenge your own result
The client asks the pod to decide whether refund idempotency is required. Should the pod decide it?
Show how this resolves
No. That is a policy choice, and policy belongs to the domain SME and the counterparty. The pod can state the options, the cost of each and what evidence would follow. It cannot choose, and a spec that records the pod choosing is a spec that will be disputed at Judge.
Ready to continue when
- No stage gives the delivery organization a client decision, or the reverse.
- The readiness row names the baselines the engagement skipped.
What transfersIn any two-party engagement, write the boundary before the plan.
Source · 05 Organizational handshake