Stop-Work Triggers
The Shield is designed to protect delivery integrity. When its core assumptions are violated, continuing work is no longer responsible.
The Rule: Stopping work is not failure. Continuing work under broken assumptions is failure.
Mandatory Triggers
Work must pause when any of the following occur:
- Scope Injection: Changes introduced without an explicit trade-off.
- Orphaned Decisions: Ownership for a critical decision cannot be named.
- Boundary Breach: Dependencies change without acknowledgement.
- Freeze Violation: New requirements injected during a Scope Freeze.
- Pressure Override: Delivery pressure attempts to bypass agreed DoR/DoD criteria.
The Protocol
- Pause: Work stops on the affected scope.
- Route: The issue is routed to the Scope Lead or Change Forum.
- Resolve: Decisions are documented and owned.
- Resume: Work restarts only once integrity is restored.