Twelve steps, three gates. The full operating model this pack moves through: the process end to end, the two build lanes, the tiers and who does what.
AGENT-AUTHORED · EVIDENCE-GROUNDED · HUMAN-APPROVED
This pack is the agent’s draft. People approve at the gates, do the creative craft and the build, and own priority and relationships. The agent shapes and accelerates the strategy; it does not set it: that is shaped with the team. Where the draft conflicts with the evidence, the agent flags it rather than hiding it.
Challenged by agents, then by the team
The strategy was pressure-tested twice before anyone was asked to build: a twenty-one-agent challenge round on the whole strategy, then a ten-journey cross-functional council pass. The verdicts sit on the journey rows of the strategy site. Challenge-before-commit is a standing step of the operating model, not a one-off.
◔ Strategy Marketing structures the strategy, the agent challenges it, and the Head of Growth owns Gate 1.
Gather the evidence ✓
Funnel, customer lifetime value, loss sizing, the comms estate, research: the facts the strategy is built on.
INPUTSMarketing: first pass ✓
Marketing structures the moments, audiences and journey logic.
MARKETINGAgent challenges it ✓
The data, comms and customer-experience lenses surface gaps, inconsistencies and dependencies before anyone commits.
AGENTMarketing: second pass ✓
Fold the challenges into a tighter strategy.
MARKETINGTeam review on the journey pack ✓
The brief (this journey pack) goes out to everyone at once: Design, Product, Product Marketing, CRM, Analytics, Engineering. All feedback lands in the feedback form, every point gets an answer, and the changes are folded into the pack. Design and Copy run their feasibility read here: can we build this experience and say this message? Catch blockers now, not after Gate 1.
EVERYONEGate 1: approve the strategy
Approve, refine, defer or block, on the updated pack, with per-team sign-off recorded after the changes round. Strategy locks and the tracker updates. Nothing moves to design without this.
GATE◕ Make Only after Gate 1. Design the experience first, then write the copy to it, then build: two clean handoffs, with Gate 2 between design-plus-copy and build.
Design the experience
Product Design owns the surfaces, mechanics, states and in-app journey, today and proposed. In: the locked strategy plus the problem and its evidence. Out: designed surfaces, every state.
PRODUCT DESIGNCreative and copy
Copy written to the designed surface: one job per message, per channel and segment variant. Out: copy direction per treatment.
CREATIVE · COPYGate 2: approve design plus copy
Marketing, with Product Marketing and Design, approve the experience and the message (not just the visual) before any build starts.
GATEValidation: Engineering and Data
Engineering confirms feasibility and effort; data gaps close; audiences and measurement get wired. Runs in parallel: the Engineering brief and the Analytics asks are issued from this pack, ahead of Gate 1, to de-risk feasibility; it closes after Gate 2.
ENG · DATA · IN PARALLELBuild in Braze, then launch
Engineering ships the events; CRM builds and QAs the canvas; Marketing clears Launch with the holdout live from day one.
BRAZE · ENG◖ Learn The loop: read the results, decide the next test, feed the next strategy.
Review, test, learn
Read at +1, +2 and +4 weeks; scale, iterate or kill; the result feeds the next strategy.
THE LOOPThe delivery spine, the same for every initiative: Discover → Define → Design → Validation → Build → Deliver → Review. Three human gates: Gate 1 (strategy), Gate 2 (creative), Launch. Design and build happen only after Gate 1; Review loops back to the next strategy.
Fast-track (tiers 3 and 4): ship now
Gate 1 → Copy → Gate 2 → Build in Braze → Launch → Review
Existing data and an existing surface, or a send on existing templates. No new screen to design and no new events, so it skips Product Design and Validation. Data wires a light holdout; CRM ships.
Full build (tiers 1 and 2): new surface or new data
Gate 1 → Design → Copy → Gate 2 → Validation → Build → Launch → Review
A new surface or new data runs the full path: Product Design, then Copy, then the Engineering and Data build.
Both lanes share Gate 1 and Gate 2: the moment’s tier decides how much build sits between them. A ship-now send never runs through the full build.
Lower tiers skip stages; higher tiers need a build. The tier is the fast-track rule, and it matches the deployment plan’s dependency tiers.
| Tier | What gets delivered | Dependency |
|---|---|---|
| 1a | New app screen, feature or flow | App engineering: a new feature or surface |
| 1b | Modify an existing app surface | App engineering: a UI change |
| 2 | New comm needing new data (no surface) | Data-gated: a new event or attribute |
| 3 | New comm on existing data and surface | Ship now, in Braze |
| 4 | A send on existing templates | Ship now, Braze copy |
The agent drafts and maintains
Stays human
| Gate | What it approves | Who clears it |
|---|---|---|
| Gate 1 | The strategy, on the updated pack after the team review | Head of Growth |
| Gate 2 | Design plus copy: the experience and the message | Head of Growth, with Product Marketing and Design |
| Launch | The built and QA’d canvas, holdout wired | Head of Growth |