The Project Entry Manual That Stops Absorbing Undefined Work
A practical system for turning vague requests into frozen specs, staged delivery, and non-negotiable exit criteria.
This workshop is part of the Plan & Scope Data Work playlist. Click here to explore the full series.
This article is just a companion. Make sure you get the actual manual at the end of the article.Ambiguity at the start is normal. Stakeholders arrive with half-formed ideas, loose language, and shifting goals. That is not the problem. Clarifying intent is the job.
The failure starts later, when work enters build without a clear entry gate.
From that moment, you choose to absorb ambiguity instead of resolving it. You choose to become responsible for business logic you did not create and cannot defend.
Once that happens, everything downstream degrades. Requirements clarify mid-build. Metrics change after dashboards ship. Source systems evolve and nobody tells you.
You end up fixing pipelines on weekends, not because you lack skill, but because the system made you the owner of decisions you never agreed to own.
This is not accidental. Data projects fail this way because teams allow them to enter without structure. No frozen spec. No binary definition of done. No public commitment. No point where intent stops moving.
This guide documents a Project Entry Manual designed to do one thing well. It turns vague requests into explicit commitments before any data work begins. It shows how to clarify ambiguity early, freeze intent deliberately, and reject undefined work without politics or bureaucracy.
Failure does not happen by accident. It happens when entry is optional.
What “Project Entry” Means In Practice
Project entry is the moment a request becomes owned work. Not discussed or explored work.
Before entry, ambiguity is allowed. After entry, ambiguity is a defect.
I limit this system to net-new projects and major logic changes. Bugs, small enhancements, don’t need such a heavy process. Mixing those lanes destroys trust in the gate because everything starts to feel heavy.
Entry produces four artifacts. If any are missing, the project does not enter.
First, a frozen scoping document. This captures intent, boundaries, and method in writing. Once frozen, intent stops moving.
Second, written business logic tests. These describe expected behavior in plain language. They exist so nobody rewrites the meaning of a metric after delivery.
Third, a staged delivery plan with dates and decision points, because stages reduce risk.
Fourth, a public sign-off in a dedicated Slack channel, so commitment becomes visible.
This control system exists to prevent endless clarification during build and to stop ownership from leaking into the data team by default.
If a request cannot produce these artifacts, it is not ready, and the system does not negotiate that.
Step 0: Route Requests Before They Become Work
Most damage happens before the kickoff. A request sneaks in through chat, a meeting, or a “quick look”, and suddenly it already feels owned.
I route before I talk.
Any request that introduces new logic, a new source, a new model, or an executive-facing output goes through Project Entry. I do not debate this.
This routing move does two things. It protects my time, and it signals how work enters the system. Over time, stakeholders learn the shape of a real request because the system teaches them.
I use a short, repeatable message. I send it immediately.
Hi Jane, I have a few questions about this project Let’s start wit ha short kickoff, so we can ensure we build the right thing.
That message sets expectations without drama. It frames the gate as protection, not friction.
Now the request has a path, a pace, and a boundary. Only after that do I spend time understanding the problem.
1. The Kickoff Workshop
The kickoff is where ambiguity gets resolved.
I run one working session. We share a screen. We write together. The goal is to extract intent fast and force it into language that can later be frozen.
I open by restating the project in my own words. Slowly. Precisely. Corrections matter. Every correction becomes input to the spec.
Then I drive the conversation using a fixed set of questions. I do not ask them as a checklist. I weave them into the discussion while we write.
At some point in the meeting, every one of these gets answered explicitly:
What decision changes if this exists?
Who owns the business meaning?
Which system does the data come from? System name only.
Who uses this and how often?
What breaks if this is wrong?
When do you expect the first usable version?
These questions do most of the work. They surface ownership. They expose risk. They force timelines into the open. They turn vague wants into operational constraints.
As we talk, I capture answers directly in the document. Background, aim, and method start taking shape in real time. Assumptions become visible. Gaps become obvious. Edge cases show up early, while they are still cheap.
I do not expect perfect answers. I expect shared thinking. The structure of the questions keeps the meeting from drifting and prevents the session from turning into exploration without commitment.
When the meeting ends, ambiguity has been surfaced and contained. The raw material for the spec exists. The next step is to validate reality and decide whether this project earns the right to move forward.
2. Draft the Scoping Document Alone
After the kickoff, I do the synthesis work myself. I take the transcript from the call and turn it into a first full version of the scoping document.
Writing it alone matters. It forces me to commit to an interpretation of what was said. If something is unclear, it shows up immediately on the page. If assumptions conflict, I have to pick one or mark it explicitly.
The document follows a fixed structure.
Background
This section captures the current state, the problem, why this matters now, and who owns the business meaning.
Aim
This one defines what changes when the project is done. This includes a clear definition of done and explicit boundaries. If success cannot be evaluated, the aim is not ready.
Method
Here we translate intent into execution shape. KPI definitions in business terms. Source systems. Example query mocks where helpful. Refresh frequency. Known business logic constraints. Stages and deliverables.
I aim for a coherent, opinionated draft that someone can disagree with.
Once the draft exists, I share it. If needed, I schedule a short refinement session where we walk through the document together and adjust it live. That meeting exists to correct interpretation, not to reopen intent.
This scoping document becomes the backbone of project entry.
I’ve written in detail about the structure and reasoning behind it already, and I reference it directly rather than reinventing it here:
Once the document reflects shared understanding, it is ready for validation. That is where most teams either protect themselves or fail.
3. Staged Delivery With Fixed Intent
Once the scope is written and reality roughly matches it, the shape of delivery gets locked.
I split delivery into stages, but I do not renegotiate intent. Stages exist to reduce risk and create early signal, not to reopen meaning.
Each stage answers one question. What exists at the end of this stage. What decision it supports. What still does not exist. If that boundary is blurry, the stage will fail.
I write stages directly into the scoping document. Each one has a concrete deliverable and a date. Not an aspiration. A date someone can react to.
A typical stage definition includes:
what gets built
what is explicitly deferred
which KPIs or outputs are available
which decisions are supported
what “done” means for this stage
I also write stop conditions. If a dependency slips. If an assumption breaks. If upstream data changes. The project pauses or gets reassessed.
This structure makes tradeoffs visible early. If a stakeholder needs the final outcome in a month and the stages show three months of work, the mismatch is explicit. The system forces a decision instead of absorbing pressure.
Staged delivery works only because intent is already frozen. Without that, stages turn into negotiation checkpoints. With it, they become risk controls.
Once stages and timelines are agreed on, the project is ready for prioritization and public commitment.
4. Prioritization Stays Internal
After stages exist, I decide when this project can happen.
I do not do this collaboratively. I do not turn it into a debate. Prioritization is my responsibility as an operator.
I use a simple internal model to compare inbound work. It accounts for business value, data risk, and blast radius. The mechanics matter to me. The numbers do not matter to anyone else.
I never share scores.
The moment you show a formula, people stop hearing judgment and start hearing math. They feel ranked. Empathy disappears, even if the outcome is reasonable.
So I keep the scoring private. What I share is the result.
“This is critical and starts now.”
“This is planned for later.”
“This sits in the backlog for now.”
If two initiatives compete for the same slot, I escalate. I do not pick winners between equally important work. I refuse to absorb that tradeoff.
I’ve broken down this prioritization approach in detail, including how I handle escalation and edge cases in this workshop here:
In this system, prioritization is not a negotiation step. It is a sequencing decision. Once timing is clear, the final move makes the commitment irreversible.
5 Public Sign-Off In Slack
Commitment only matters when it is visible.
Once scope, stages, and timing are clear, I create a dedicated Slack channel for the project. This channel becomes the decision log. Everything that matters lives there.
I post a single, deliberate message. It summarizes the project in plain language. It links the scoping document. It states what will be built and when. It names the owner of the business meaning.
Then I ask one question.
Any objections?
I wait.
Silence means agreement. The channel makes that agreement public and timestamped. Nobody can claim surprise later. Nobody can rewrite history.
I do not chase acknowledgements. I do not ask for thumbs up. The burden shifts to the room. If something feels wrong, this is the moment to say it.
That moment matters more than the document itself. This is where intent turns into commitment. Timed, visible and irreversible.
From this point on, the data team builds against what was agreed.
This step ends clarification. The work either starts clean or it does not start at all.
Final Thoughts
This mistake repeats across data roles. Engineer. Analyst. Scientist. Someone brings an ask, and you jump straight into execution. You want to be helpful. You want to move fast. You want the thank you.
What you get instead is chaos.
Unstructured projects. Stakeholders jumping in halfway through. KPIs changing mid-build. Sources quietly swapped. And when you finally show the result, you hear the sentence you already expected: this is not what I was looking for.
This is not a communication problem, but an identity problem.
If you act like an executor, you train the organization to treat you like one. Execution invites revision, absorbs ambiguity, and inherits decisions it did not make.
Trusted partners do not behave this way.
You were not hired because you can write SQL faster than everyone else. You were hired because you understand systems, constraints, and consequences better than the people making the request. That expertise is useless if you give it away at entry.
Project entry is where that line gets drawn. Not to slow work down. To make success possible at all.
Teams that skip this step keep shipping and keep losing credibility. Teams that enforce it ship less confusion and more trust.
At senior levels, impact stops coming from speed. It comes from deciding what you are willing to own.
The Manual
Everything above explains the system. The manual is what you actually run.
I’ve built the full Project Entry Manual in Notion. It includes the kickoff facilitation guide, the scoping doc template, the internal entry checklist, and all supporting resources referenced in this article.
This is the operational version. The one you keep open while running projects. The one that decides whether work is allowed to enter build.
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