Project Phase and Status
Project Phase and Status
Any initiative or project has two distinct tracking dimensions: phase and status. These are often conflated into a single field, but keeping them separate is genuinely useful.
The Distinction
Phase tracks where something is in its lifecycle — the stage of development from idea to retirement. It answers: "What kind of work is this right now?"
Status tracks the current activity level within that phase. It answers: "Is anyone actively working on this?"
You can always collapse phase and status into a single field if you want simplicity, but having both gives you much more precision.
Phases
| Phase | Description |
|---|---|
| Inbox | Ideation — an idea that has arrived and needs thinking about. Not yet committed to. |
| Planning | Being actively planned and prepared — scoping, resourcing, designing. |
| Shipping | Being built — active development or execution underway. |
| Sharing | Launched but being actively communicated, promoted, or rolled out. |
| Stable | Live and running with no active development needed. |
| Retired | Archived or discontinued. No longer active. |
Statuses
| Status | Description |
|---|---|
| Backlog | Not being worked on yet — queued for future attention. |
| In progress | Actively being worked on now. |
| Paused | Was in progress, but currently on hold. |
| Done | Completed (within its current phase). |
| Blocked | Cannot proceed due to an external dependency or decision needed. |
Defaults
- Anything entering the system for the first time defaults to phase: inbox, status: backlog.
- "Done" on status means done within the current phase — a project can be done with planning and move into shipping.
Notes
- Need to dig out earlier material on this from Datopian — likely in an ROC (Requests for Comment) there. This writeup is a first pass to capture the core distinction.