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Ready

Why Most Software Projects Fail and How to Fix It

Max Guernsey, III and Luniel de Beer

Most delivery problems aren't caused by the code, the team, or the work management process.

They start upstream: with how requirements mature (or don't).

Ready introduces Requirements Maturation Flow (RMF), a system for gating, clarifying, and aligning work — before it starts and without changing your framework.

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About

About

About the Course

Ready is a course for anyone tired of underdelivery, chronic rework, and unclear requirements in their software development pipeline.

This course comes with hours of exclusive video interviews with author Luniel de Beer discussing topics relevant to each lesson in fireside-chat style conversation with Leanpub co-founder Len Epp.

You may already have tried investing in team execution skills, improved implementation of your process framework, or refurbishing the code and still need more improvement.

This is because the principal constraint for most software development teams is not team skills, it's requirements maturity. Even mature teams with the right skills still struggle when they are working to immature requirements.

Ready introduces RMF (Requirements Maturation Flow), a practical and deeply structured approach to aligning Product and Engineering without replacing your existing process.

Whether you're using Scrum, Kanban, or something custom, RMF helps you stabilize scope, eliminate carryover, and deliver what actually matters.

If your teams feel stuck at the edge of "almost done", this course will show you how to break the cycle and unblock your team(s) for good.

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Instructors

About the Instructors

Max Guernsey, III

Max Guernsey, III is a software architect, educator, and co-founder of Producore, a consultancy dedicated to fixing delivery failures through structural and technical rigor. With over two decades of experience in object‑oriented design, refactoring, test‑driven development, and design patterns, he has both delivered mission‑critical systems and coached engineering teams at scale. His work blends deep technical practices with behavioral and process transformation to help organizations achieve sustainable delivery excellence.

Leanpub Podcast

Episode 323

An Interview with MaxGuernseyIII

Luniel de Beer

Luniel de Beer is a software product and delivery systems architect with over 15 years of experience helping teams work with clarity, confidence, and accountability. He is the creator of the Requirements Maturation Flow (RMF) and the originator of Producore’s Capability Management system, both designed to address the missing foundations beneath modern software product delivery. His work replaces vague requirements and broken handoffs with structured collaboration, traceability, and readiness gating.

Luniel also envisioned PKB-Driven Development (PKBDD), a system for managing persistent product knowledge, and has worked alongside his Producore co-founder, Max Guernsey, III, to advance a scalable, rigorous approach to Behavior-Driven Development (BDD). Their integrated system combines behavioral specification, capability modeling, and product traceability to support end-to-end delivery across teams and organizations.

Leanpub Podcast

Episode 322

An Interview with Luniel de Beer

Material

Course Material

  • Part I: Introduction

  • 1: About the Course

  • 2: Who This Is For

  • 3: How to Use This Course

  • 4: About the Authors

  • 5: Preface

  • 5.1: Note to Engineering Leaders

  • 5.2: From Luniel

  • 5.3: From Max

  • Part II: Something Is Missing

  • 6: The Hidden Problem

  • 6.1: The Classic Rewrite

  • 6.2: Perspectives on the Problem

  • Exercise 1

  • 6.3: Our Investigation

  • Exercise 2

  • 6.4: Digging Deeper

  • Exercise 3

  • 6.5: Making Things Better Didn’t Make It Better

  • Exercise 4

  • 6.6: A Process of Elimination

  • 6.7: Hunting for the Real Culprit

  • Exercise 5

  • 6.8: Dissecting the Seeds of Failure

  • Exercise 6

  • 6.9: A Point of Intersection

  • Exercise 7

  • 6.10: The Big Turnaround

  • Quiz 1

    3 attempts allowed

  • 7: The Cost of Missing Foundations

  • 7.1: The Puzzle without the Box Art

  • 7.2: An Old Adage and a Harsh Reality

  • Exercise 8

  • 7.3: Some of the Common Results

  • Exercise 9

  • 7.4: When is a Puzzle Done?

  • Exercise 10

  • 7.5: Impact on Teams

  • Exercise 11

  • 7.6: The Risk of Doing Too Little or Too Much

  • Exercise 12

  • 7.7: Where Do You Build a Puzzle?

  • 7.8: When Does Implementation Start?

  • Exercise 13

  • 7.9: An A-Team without Readiness

  • Exercise 14

  • 7.10: Failing to Attend to Scheduling and Resource-Availability

  • Exercise 15

  • 7.11: Impacts from Other Types of False Starts

  • Exercise 16

  • 7.12: Cumulative Costs

  • Exercise 17

  • Quiz 2

    3 attempts allowed

  • 8: Introducing Requirements Maturation Flow (RMF)

  • 8.1: What RMF Isn’t

  • Exercise 18

  • 8.2: What RMF Is

  • Exercise 19

  • 8.3: Incremental Adoption is Supported and Recommended

  • Exercise 20

  • 8.4: RMF 1

  • Exercise 21

  • 8.5: RMF 2

  • Exercise 22

  • 8.6: RMF 3

  • Exercise 23

  • Quiz 3

    3 attempts allowed

  • 9: Is It Agile?

  • 9.1: “Individuals and Interactions”, “Working Software”

  • 9.2: Customer Collaboration

  • Exercise 24

  • 9.3: Responding to Change

  • Exercise 25

  • 9.4: Transparency

  • Exercise 26

  • 9.5: Fits with Process, Consistent with Agile

  • Quiz 4

    3 attempts allowed

  • Part III: Creating Space for Readiness

  • 10: The First Extension

  • 10.1: Readiness Work is Work

  • Exercise 27

  • 10.2: Naturalizing Readiness Work

  • Exercise 28

  • 10.3: An Illustrative Incident

  • Exercise 29

  • 10.4: Reciprocal Impact

  • Exercise 30

  • 10.5: The Function of RMF 1

  • Exercise 31

  • Quiz 5

    3 attempts allowed

  • 11: Why Don’t People Do This?

  • 11.1: Readiness Work as a Second-Class Citizen

  • 11.2: An Allergy to Non-Productive Work

  • 11.3: So It Got Buried

  • 11.4: The Influence of Project Management

  • Exercise 32

  • 11.5: The Pattern

  • Exercise 33

  • 11.6: Projects and Estimating

  • Exercise 34

  • 11.7: How the Non-Estimate Estimates Influence Readiness Work

  • Exercise 35

  • 11.8: Measuring Speed, Not Velocity

  • Exercise 36

  • 11.9: Bad Measurements, Bad Results

  • Exercise 37

  • 11.10: Where the Blame Doesn’t Lie

  • Quiz 6

    3 attempts allowed

  • 12: Explicit Readiness Work (RMF 1)

  • 12.1: Integration with the Synapse Framework™

  • Exercise 38

  • 12.2: Anatomy of RMF 1

  • Exercise 39

  • 12.3: Behavior: Reserve Capacity for Collaboration

  • Exercise 40

  • 12.4: Artifact: The Readiness Work Item

  • Exercise 41

  • 12.5: Activity: The Collaboration Meeting

  • Exercise 42

  • 12.6: Behavior: Continue Collaborating Until Shared Understanding is Achieved

  • Exercise 43

  • 12.7: Behavior: Always Confirm Shared Understanding

  • Exercise 44

  • 12.8: How RMF 1 Changes the Workflow

  • Exercise 45

  • Quiz 7

    3 attempts allowed

  • 13: Effects of RMF 1

  • 13.1: Life Before RMF 1

  • Exercise 46

  • 13.2: Before: Time Spent Understanding

  • Exercise 47

  • 13.3: After: Time Spent Understanding

  • Exercise 48

  • 13.4: Life After Adopting RMF 1

  • Exercise 49

  • 13.5: Foundational

  • Quiz 8

    3 attempts allowed

  • 14: Putting RMF 1 Into Practice

  • Exercise 50

  • 14.1: Education

  • Exercise 51

  • 14.2: Minimum Requirements by Team Type

  • Exercise 52

  • 14.3: Agreement

  • Exercise 53

  • 14.4: Preparation

  • Exercise 54

  • 14.5: Pilot

  • Exercise 55

  • 14.6: Rollout

  • Exercise 56

  • 14.7: Follow Up

  • Exercise 57

  • 14.8: Claiming Success

  • Exercise 58

  • 14.9: Remaining Vigilant

  • Exercise 59

  • 14.10: What about the “How”?

  • Exercise 60

  • 14.11: Time to Make it Happen!

  • Quiz 9

    3 attempts allowed

  • Part IV: Gating Completion of Work

  • 15: The Next Need

  • Exercise 61

  • 15.1: Room for Interpretation

  • Exercise 62

  • 15.2: Narrowing Room for Interpretation

  • Exercise 63

  • 15.3: A Third Option: No “Wiggle Room”

  • 15.4: Potential Impact on Completion

  • Exercise 64

  • 15.5: Potential Impact on Execution

  • Exercise 65

  • 15.6: Proposed Alternative: Leave No Room for Misinterpretation

  • Exercise 66

  • 15.7: Benefits

  • Exercise 67

  • 15.8: On Fears of Analysis Paralysis

  • Exercise 68

  • 15.9: The Next Need: Bespoke Definitions of Done

  • Exercise 69

  • Quiz 10

    3 attempts allowed

  • 16: What People Usually Do

  • 16.1: If It’s So Great, Why Don’t People Do This?

  • Exercise 70

  • 16.2: The College to Coaching Pipeline

  • 16.3: Coaching Overload

  • 16.4: One Way People Do DoD: Don’t

  • Exercise 71

  • 16.5: Acceptance Criteria Only

  • Exercise 72

  • 16.6: Global Definition of Done

  • Exercise 73

  • 16.7: No Teeth

  • Exercise 74

  • 16.8: Summary: The Term “DoD” Is More Frequent than Actual Definitions of Done

  • Quiz 11

    3 attempts allowed

  • 17: Defining a Definition of Done

  • 17.1: About Just One Work Item

  • Exercise 75

  • 17.2: Doneness

  • Exercise 76

  • 17.3: Preciseness

  • Exercise 77

  • 17.4: Structure of a DoD

  • Exercise 78

  • 17.5: Specifications

  • Exercise 79

  • 17.6: Engineering Exit Criteria

  • Exercise 80

  • 17.7: Product Entrance Criteria

  • Exercise 81

  • 17.8: Multiple Parts, One Gate

  • 17.9: Example

  • Exercise 82

  • 17.10: Mapping to Your Process

  • Exercise 83

  • 17.11: Summary

  • Exercise 84

  • Quiz 12

    3 attempts allowed

  • 18: Bespoke Definition of Done (RMF 2)

  • 18.1: Principle: Every Work Item is Unique

  • Exercise 85

  • 18.2: Behavior: Maintain One or More DoD Templates

  • Exercise 86

  • 18.3: Activity: Defining the DoD Template

  • Exercise 87

  • 18.4: Maintain and Improve the DoD Template

  • Exercise 88

  • 18.5: Multiple DoD Templates

  • Exercise 89

  • 18.6: Behavior: Use Templates as Starting Points for Definitions of Done

  • Exercise 90

  • 18.7: Behavior: Agree to Bespoke Definitions of Done

  • Exercise 91

  • 18.8: Activity: Defining a Work Item Definition of Done

  • Exercise 92

  • 18.9: Another Extension to the Workflow

  • Exercise 93

  • 18.10: Behavior: Mature the DoD before Starting Implementation

  • Exercise 94

  • 18.11: Activity: Offline Analysis to Mature a PBI’s DoD

  • Exercise 95

  • 18.12: Adding Maturation to the Flow

  • Exercise 96

  • 18.13: Behavior: Tracking Doneness in Work Items

  • Exercise 97

  • 18.14: Adding Progress-Tracking

  • 18.15: Behavior: Gate Work by Doneness

  • Exercise 98

  • 18.16: Activity: Using the DoD to Determine Doneness

  • Exercise 99

  • 18.17: How the Gating Fits In

  • 18.18: In Sum

  • Exercise 100

  • Quiz 13

    3 attempts allowed

  • 19: Life With RMF 1 & 2

  • 19.1: Cost

  • Exercise 101

  • 19.2: Timelines

  • Exercise 102

  • 19.3: Impact on the Implementation Team

  • Exercise 103

  • 19.4: Impact on the Product Owner

  • Exercise 104

  • 19.5: Impact on Leadership

  • Exercise 105

  • 19.6: Summary

  • Quiz 14

    3 attempts allowed

  • 20: Installing RMF 2

  • 20.1: Stakeholder Involvement

  • Exercise 106

  • 20.2: Level of Detail

  • Exercise 107

  • 20.3: Working Agreement

  • Exercise 108

  • 20.4: Initial Work

  • 20.5: Rollout

  • 20.6: Summary

  • Exercise 109

  • Quiz 15

    3 attempts allowed

  • Part V: Gating Implementation

  • 21: The Final Requirement

  • Exercise 110

  • 21.1: It Was There the Whole Time

  • Exercise 111

  • 21.2: The Power of Timing

  • Exercise 112

  • 21.3: Flipping It on Its Head

  • Exercise 113

  • 21.4: Risks & Costs

  • Exercise 114

  • 21.5: The Value of Waiting Until Ready

  • Exercise 115

  • 21.6: An Added Benefit

  • Exercise 116

  • 21.7: The Problem Statement

  • Exercise 117

  • 21.8: The Need

  • 21.9: Summary

  • Exercise 118

  • Quiz 16

    3 attempts allowed

  • 22: Background on Definition of Ready

  • 22.1: Lean’s Permission to Work

  • Exercise 119

  • 22.2: Kanban’s Column Entry Criteria

  • Exercise 120

  • 22.3: Scrum and other Agile Process Apocrypha

  • Exercise 121

  • 22.4: Surfing > Coding

  • 22.5: Point Solutions

  • 22.6: We’re Ready to Get Ready

  • Quiz 17

    3 attempts allowed

  • 23: Defining a Definition of Ready

  • 23.1: Purpose

  • 23.2: Bespoke

  • Exercise 122

  • 23.3: Anatomy

  • 23.4: Example

  • Exercise 123

  • 23.5: Agreement

  • Exercise 124

  • 23.6: Gating

  • Exercise 125

  • 23.7: Summary

  • Exercise 126

  • Quiz 18

    3 attempts allowed

  • 24: Bespoke Definition of Ready (RMF 3)

  • Exercise 127

  • 24.1: Another Gate in the Process

  • Exercise 128

  • 24.2: The Structure of a Definition of Ready

  • Exercise 129

  • 24.3: Product Exit Criteria

  • 24.4: Engineering Entrance Criteria

  • Exercise 130

  • 24.5: No Harm in Duplication

  • Exercise 131

  • 24.6: Behavior: Maintain One or More DoR Templates

  • Exercise 132

  • 24.7: Why Have a Definition of Ready Template?

  • Exercise 133

  • 24.8: Activity: Defining the DoR Template

  • 24.9: Maintain DoR Templates Over Time

  • Exercise 134

  • 24.10: Templates are Just a Starting Point

  • Exercise 135

  • 24.11: Behavior: Agree to Bespoke Definitions of Ready

  • 24.12: Activity: Defining a Work Item Definition of Ready

  • Exercise 136

  • 24.13: Behavior: Make Items Ready before Starting Implementation

  • Exercise 137

  • 24.14: Conditions Outside the Team’s Control

  • Exercise 138

  • 24.15: Behavior: Track Readiness in Work Items

  • Exercise 139

  • 24.16: Behavior: Gate Work by Readiness

  • Exercise 140

  • 24.17: Activity: Using the DoR to Determine Readiness

  • Exercise 141

  • 24.18: In Sum

  • Exercise 142

  • Quiz 19

    3 attempts allowed

  • Part VI: Synthesis

  • 25: Most Deadlines Don’t Matter

  • 25.1: Real Deadlines

  • Exercise 143

  • 25.2: Arbitrary Deadlines Don’t Matter

  • Exercise 144

  • 25.3: Airlines

  • Exercise 145

  • 25.4: The Origin of Technical Debt

  • Exercise 146

  • 25.5: Marketing and Sales Deadlines

  • Exercise 147

  • 25.6: Project Deadlines

  • 25.7: There Is Another Way

  • Exercise 148

  • 25.8: Arbitrary Deadlines are Not Necessary

  • Exercise 149

  • 25.9: Arbitrary Deadlines Must be Abolished

  • 25.10: Real Deadlines Still a Factor

  • Exercise 150

  • 25.11: Pis Aller

  • Exercise 151

  • 25.12: Conclusion

  • Exercise 152

  • Quiz 20

    3 attempts allowed

  • 26: Competency 1: Requirements Maturation Flow

  • 26.1: As Below, So Above

  • Exercise 153

  • 26.2: Principle: Transparency Into All Necessary Work

  • 26.3: Behavior: Responsibility Travels with Work

  • Exercise 154

  • 26.4: Behavior: Visibly Track the State of Requirements

  • Exercise 155

  • 26.5: Behavior: Reveal All Work Associated with Readiness and Implementation

  • Exercise 156

  • 26.6: Activity: Readiness Work

  • Exercise 157

  • 26.7: Behavior: Reveal All Work Necessary to Complete a Work Item

  • Exercise 158

  • 26.8: Behavior: Prefer Readiness over Deadlines

  • Exercise 159

  • 26.9: Conclusion

  • Exercise 160

  • Quiz 21

    3 attempts allowed

  • 27: How Work and Information Flows in Scrum with RMF

  • Exercise 161

  • 27.1: Prefatory Notes

  • 27.2: Capturing and Preparing the Initial Requirement

  • Exercise 162

  • 27.3: Initiating Readiness Work

  • Exercise 163

  • 27.4: Planning and Executing Readiness Work

  • Exercise 164

  • 27.5: Reviewing Readiness Outcomes

  • Exercise 165

  • 27.6: Planning and Completing Implementation

  • Exercise 166

  • Quiz 22

    3 attempts allowed

  • 28: The Impact of RMF

  • 28.1: The Life of a Requirement

  • Exercise 167

  • 28.2: Example Flow of Information and Work

  • Exercise 168

  • 28.3: Before

  • Exercise 169

  • 28.4: After

  • Exercise 170

  • 28.5: Benefits

  • Exercise 171

  • Quiz 23

    3 attempts allowed

  • 29: Transitioning to RMF

  • 29.1: Pattern of Adoption

  • Exercise 172

  • 29.2: Installation into a Scrum Workflow

  • Exercise 173

  • 29.3: Other Frameworks

  • Exercise 174

  • 29.4: Major Pushback: Readiness Work Items

  • 29.5: The Big Shift: Mindset

  • Exercise 175

  • 29.6: Advice for Change

  • Exercise 176

  • 29.7: Conclusion

  • Exercise 177

  • Quiz 24

    3 attempts allowed

  • 30: It’s Up to You

  • 30.1: Recap

  • Exercise 178

  • 30.2: Now, It’s Your Turn

  • Quiz 25

    3 attempts allowed

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