# The Operating Cadence, One Page

> The whole handbook as a calendar. What happens weekly, per sprint, per quarter,
> and who owns each. Print it. If a practice is not on a calendar with a name
> next to it, it is an intention, and intentions lose to whatever is urgent.

---

## The weekly rhythm

| Slot | Duration | What happens | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | 30 min | Pick the week's research question. One, written as a question. | Designer plus PM |
| Tue to Wed | 90 min | Contact. Two to four user sessions. | Designer |
| Wednesday | 30 min | Rubric review on one rotating surface. Scores prepared in advance. | Facilitator |
| Thursday | 30 min | Synthesis. Update the evidence register. One line to the team. | Whoever ran sessions |
| Friday | 15 min | Constraint check. Anything shipped this week that broke a rule? | Surface owner |

Three hours total. That is the whole weekly commitment, and it is the floor, not
the ceiling.

The Friday fifteen minutes is the one people cut first and the one that keeps the
constraint set honest. Cut the Monday slot instead if something has to go, and
skip the research week rather than run it on a manufactured question.

---

## Per feature, before anything gets made

Sequence matters. These happen in this order, and the whole model breaks when
they happen after.

| Step | Output | Owner | Gate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Failure inventory, ten rows | Designer, engineer, support | Ninety minutes, before design |
| 2 | Constraint set, three to six rules | Designer | In the ticket, before generation |
| 3 | Range spec, three columns | Designer | Worst acceptable written first |
| 4 | Exposure grid placement per action | Designer | Nothing lands in Q4 |
| 5 | Wrong-path design and copy | Designer | Owned, not overflow |
| 6 | Rubric for the surface | Designer plus one | Calibrated before launch |
| 7 | Decision record | Whoever decided | Filed, linked from the work |

A feature that reaches build without steps 1 through 3 is a feature where design
will be doing QA at the end. That is the single highest-leverage rule in this
document.

---

## Per sprint

| Ritual | Duration | Output |
|---|---|---|
| Failure inventory for anything new | 90 min | Ten rows, feeding constraints and evals |
| Rubric calibration if disagreement rates rose | 30 min | Rewritten tests |
| Wrong-path check on anything shipping | 20 min | Every failure state has an owner |
| Decision records filed | Ongoing | One per non-obvious call |

---

## Per quarter

| Ritual | Duration | Output | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Evidence register review | 2 hours | Stale rows marked, upgrade targets picked | Register owner |
| Ownership map review | 1 hour | Boundaries re-agreed with PM and engineering | Design lead |
| Range spec re-sort | 1 hour per surface | Ten outputs re-sorted, boundaries adjusted | Surface owner |
| Kill list pass | 90 min | One ritual killed, replacement running | Design lead |
| Rubric version review | 1 hour | What changed, why, and whether scores are still comparable | Design lead |
| Cross-team failure inventory | 2 hours | Failures that cross boundaries, and who owns them | Design lead |

The quarterly list looks long and is about a day. A day a quarter is the cost of
a practice that does not quietly drift.

---

## What to do when you cannot do all of it

Real teams are not going to run all of this in month one. The order to adopt in,
highest return first:

1. **Constraint sets on the two highest-traffic surfaces.** Everything else gets
   better once these exist.
2. **The Friday fifteen minutes.** Cheapest ritual here, and it makes the
   constraints real rather than aspirational.
3. **Failure inventory before new features.** Ninety minutes that saves weeks.
4. **One rubric, calibrated.** Start with the surface that generates the most
   review argument.
5. **The weekly rubric review.** Only after a rubric exists and is calibrated.
6. **The research cadence.** Highest ongoing cost, so it comes after the cheaper
   things are habitual.

Adopting in a different order mostly does not work. The review needs a rubric,
the rubric needs constraints, and the constraints need something to react to.

---

## The two numbers to watch

**Percentage of live surfaces with a current constraint set.** The coverage
number. If it is falling while you ship, judgment is not keeping up with
generation.

**Rubric disagreement rate.** The health number. Near zero means the rubric is
trivial or people are not scoring independently. Above a third means it is not
shared understanding yet.

Report both monthly. Two numbers, no dashboard.

---

## The one thing to do this week

Put the Friday fifteen minutes on the calendar for the next four weeks, with a
name next to it. It is the cheapest item on this page and the one that tells you
fastest whether your constraints are real.

---

_From "The Operating Cadence", chapter 24 of The Design Operating Model._
_falkster.com/design/the-operating-cadence_