The GoalPath Development Process
Most software teams operate in one of two failure modes: too much process (Jira boards with 200 fields nobody fills in) or too little (a shared Slack channel and a prayer). GoalPath is designed for the middle ground.
The GoalPath process is a structured development workflow built around Scrum principles, with a weekly cadence instead of configurable sprints, and automated facilitation instead of a dedicated scrum master. If your team already knows what velocity, story points, and retrospectives are, you already speak the language. The difference is that GoalPath runs the process. The tool shows you what to do next.
The Four Phases
Work in GoalPath flows through four phases: Discovery, Planning, Execution, and Delivery. Each phase has clear inputs, outputs, and ceremonies. Each phase hands off cleanly to the next.
The solid lines show work moving forward through four phases: Discovery (idea to scope), Planning (scope to backlog), and Execution (the weekly build cycle). The dotted lines show the Delivery feedback loop: velocity data feeds forecasts, forecasts feed reports, reports feed alignment meetings, and alignment meetings feed back into execution priorities.
Discovery: From Idea to Defined Scope
Discovery turns a rough idea into a milestone with clear goals, defined scope, and mapped dependencies. The key technique here is reverse planning: start from the desired outcome and work backward to what needs to be true for that outcome to happen.
During Discovery, the team:
- Defines what success looks like for the milestone
- Identifies dependencies on other milestones or external systems
- Maps out risks and open questions
- Produces a milestone description that can drive planning
Discovery does not produce a full item list. That happens in Planning. Discovery produces scope clarity: enough shared understanding to plan confidently.
Planning: Breaking Down the Work
Planning is a facilitated meeting where the team converts a milestone description into a prioritized, estimated item list. The team votes on priorities, breaks vague requirements into concrete work items, and assigns story point estimates.
The output of Planning: an ordered backlog of items, each with an estimate, that the team believes represents the full scope of the milestone.
Unplanned work is a fact of life. Planning doesn't eliminate surprises. It creates a shared baseline so that when surprises arrive, the team can assess impact against something concrete.
Execution: Weekly Cadence
During Execution, the team works through the backlog on a weekly cadence. The kanban board shows the current state of all items. Standups keep the team aligned daily. WIP monitoring surfaces when too many things are in progress at once.
Items move through a defined status workflow:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| NotStarted | In the backlog, not yet being worked |
| Started | Actively in progress |
| Finished | Work complete, ready for review |
| Delivered | Shipped to production or handed to stakeholders |
| Accepted | Stakeholder confirmed it meets requirements |
| Rejected | Reviewed and does not meet requirements. Needs rework. |
This workflow is not ceremony for ceremony's sake. Each transition is a real handoff with a clear meaning. "Finished" and "Delivered" are different: something can be done technically but not yet in production. "Delivered" and "Accepted" are different: something can be in production but not yet verified by the person who asked for it.
Delivery: Forecasting and Alignment
Delivery is not a phase with a hard start date. It runs alongside Execution. As items complete and velocity becomes measurable, GoalPath generates forecasts, health reports, and progress updates.
During Delivery, the team:
- Reviews forecast accuracy in alignment meetings
- Adjusts scope or priorities when the forecast diverges from targets
- Communicates progress to stakeholders via automated weekly reports
- Conducts retrospectives to improve the process itself
The goal of Delivery is shared reality: stakeholders and the team looking at the same numbers, with the same understanding of where things stand.
What GoalPath Automates
Several parts of the process that traditionally require manual effort are automated in GoalPath. For a full explanation of the underlying calculations, see the Automation and Principles guide.
Velocity tracking. GoalPath measures story points completed per work-week over a rolling 6-week window. You never need to calculate or update this manually.
Monte Carlo delivery forecasts. Based on velocity, multitasking load, and estimate confidence, GoalPath generates three-point delivery forecasts: optimistic, expected, and pessimistic. Forecasts update as work completes.
Weekly progress reports. Every Sunday night, GoalPath generates a plain-English progress update covering what shipped, what's blocked, and how the forecast changed. Ready for stakeholders on Monday morning.
Milestone health monitoring. GoalPath surfaces warning signals automatically: milestones with high multitasking penalties, items stuck in Started, unestimated backlogs, and forecast slippage.
WIP and flow visibility. The kanban board and delivery probability lines show the current state of flow without requiring manual calculation.
Roles
GoalPath has four process roles. Access permissions map to these roles, but more importantly, each role has a defined set of responsibilities in the process.
| Role | Responsibilities |
|---|---|
| Owner | Project administration, team setup, billing, and ultimate accountability for delivery |
| Project Leader | Milestone planning, priority decisions, cross-team coordination, and voting |
| Collaborator | Day-to-day execution: creating items, tracking progress, and driving milestones forward |
| Stakeholder | Providing business context, voting on priorities, and reviewing delivered work |
Viewer is an access role, not a process role. Viewers can see roadmap and milestone data but do not participate in the process.
Full role guides:
Ceremonies
GoalPath has five ceremonies. Two are facilitated directly in the tool with step-by-step guidance. Three are process guides the team runs with GoalPath data as input.
Alignment Meeting
A regular meeting between the team and stakeholders to review progress, assess forecast changes, and make course-correction decisions. GoalPath facilitates this as a 6-stage structured meeting: Progress and Flow Snapshot, Flow Health and Escalation, Business Value Voting, Visual Roadmap, Roadmap Update, and Decisions and Summary.
Milestone Planning
The meeting where a new milestone gets broken down into a prioritized, estimated item list. The team reviews the milestone description, proposes items, estimates them with story points, and sets priority order.
Roadmap Planning
A higher-level planning session where the team reviews the full milestone roadmap, adjusts milestone priorities, and ensures the next 2-3 milestones have clear enough scope to plan.
Standup
The daily team sync. GoalPath facilitates standup as a 4-stage structured meeting: Inbox, Highlighted Items, Team Members, and Let's Get Going. Each team member walks through their items. The interface surfaces what matters.
Retrospective
A regular meeting for the team to assess the process itself: what worked, what didn't, and what to change. Retrospectives use GoalPath velocity and health data as a factual starting point before moving to discussion.
How This Relates to Scrum
GoalPath is built on Scrum principles. If you've used Scrum, almost nothing here is unfamiliar: velocity, story points, a defined backlog, iterative delivery, retrospectives.
The main differences:
Weekly cadence, not configurable sprints. GoalPath uses a fixed weekly rhythm. There's no sprint setup, no sprint close ceremony, no sprint board to manage separately. The cadence is always one week.
Automated facilitation, not a dedicated scrum master. A scrum master's job is to run ceremonies, surface blockers, protect the team from distraction, and keep the process honest. GoalPath does this through the interface. Standups are guided. Alignment meetings are structured. The tool asks the right questions at the right time.
Forecasts, not velocity targets. Scrum teams often use velocity to set sprint goals: "we deliver 40 points per sprint." GoalPath uses velocity as input to forecasts: "at current velocity, this milestone completes in 7 weeks." The goal is honesty about timelines, not pressure to hit a number.
For a detailed comparison with Scrum and other frameworks, see the Process Comparison guide.
Getting Started
Find your role. Start with the guide for your role to understand your responsibilities in the process.
- I'm an Owner: Project setup, team structure, and accountability
- I'm a Project Leader: Milestone planning, prioritization, and cross-team coordination
- I'm a Collaborator: Day-to-day work, standups, and driving items to done
- I'm a Stakeholder: Voting, progress review, and accepting delivered work
Prepare for your next meeting. If a ceremony is coming up, the guides explain exactly what to prepare and what happens during each stage.
- Standup: Daily, runs in GoalPath
- Milestone Planning: When starting a new milestone
- Alignment Meeting: Regular stakeholder sync, runs in GoalPath
- Retrospective: End of milestone or monthly
- Roadmap Planning: Quarterly or when roadmap needs reordering