Foundation Sprint Approach Options

Foundation Sprint Approach Options

Day 2 morning of a Foundation Sprint. The team forces itself to generate multiple plausible approaches before committing to one. The skill enforces a minimum of 3 approaches; anchoring on a single approach is the most common Day 2 failure mode.

Family contract: docs/reference/skill-families/foundation-sprint-skills-contract.md. This skill is a member of foundation-sprint-skills.

When to Use

• Day 2 morning of a Foundation Sprint.
• Day 1 is signed; the Mini Manifesto, decision principles, and differentiation chart are committed.
• The team is ready to generate candidate approaches before evaluating them through Magic Lenses in the afternoon.

When NOT to Use

• Day 1 is unresolved. Approach Options without differentiation context produces approaches that miss the strategic position.
• The team has only one approach in mind and is unwilling to generate alternatives. The skill forces minimum 3; if the team refuses, the issue is sprint discipline, not tooling.
• More than 7 approaches are emerging organically. The skill caps generation at 7; beyond that the team is generating features, not strategic approaches.

What This Skill Produces

A single bundled artifact containing:

1. 3 to 7 one-page approach summaries, each with:
   • Name and label (color, letter, ID)
   • One-sentence "what it is"
   • "Why it's a good idea" rationale (1 short paragraph)
   • Simple doodle or textual visual description
   • How the approach serves the two chosen differentiators
2. Approach set summary table comparing all approaches at a glance (label, name, capture mechanism, recall mechanism, primary trade-off).

See references/TEMPLATE.md for the canonical structure and references/EXAMPLE.md for the Brainshelf example.

Sequence (75 minutes)

Step 1: Frame the approach space (5 min)

The facilitator restates the differentiation: "We are committing to [differentiator 1] and [differentiator 2]. Approaches that fail either of these are out of scope." This sets the boundary; the team generates inside it, not outside it.