The SAM lifecycle

Mode: reference.

An investment under SAM (the Softwired ATL Method) moves through six stages grouped into three acts. The stages are surfaced by Tollgate; the acts are the sponsor-facing framing.

Act	Stages	The sponsor’s question
Commit	Discovery, Approval	Is this worth funding?
Run	Initiation, Delivery	Is it still worth it?
Evaluate	Close-out, Benefits Realisation	What did we get, and what next time?

Charter approval states

Most stages are expressed as the investment thesis / business case’s approval status (VALID_CHARTER_APPROVAL_STATUSES). The full ordered enum:

State	Stage	Meaning
Exploring	Discovery	Candidate under pressure-test; relaxed gates.
Draft	Approval	Being prepared for submission (also where a returned case lands).
Submitted	Approval	Submitted for sponsor decision; ages visibly.
Approved	Approval → Run	Chartered. The investment is committed and runs.
ClosingSubmitted	Close-out	Close-out submission awaiting sponsor sign-off.
Closed	Close-out	Sponsor signed off; retired from active steering. Terminal (escape valve: reopenClosure).
Archived	Discovery / Approval	Killed with dignity — explored, not pursued. Terminal, findable.
InRealisation	Benefits Realisation	Benefits realisation under way.
Realised	Benefits Realisation	Sponsor verdict: benefits realised. Terminal.
NotRealised	Benefits Realisation	Sponsor verdict: benefits not realised. Terminal; carries an elevated lessons-learned field.
InMaintenance	Benefits Realisation	Realised investment graduated to annual review.

Note

Initiation and Delivery are not charter-status values. They are computed from the Approved state plus status timestamps (SAM’s stage states are thesis-governance lifecycle, not delivery-phase enums). The get-project-health action reports a derived lifecycleStage of Discovery / Approval / Initiation / Delivery / Close-out / Closed / BR.

Stage transitions

Discovery

• Exploring → Submitted — PM submits the business case for approval.
• Exploring → Archived — killed with dignity (a one-line rationale). Terminal, but findable.

Approval

• Submitted → Approved — sponsor approves (optional rationale).
• Submitted → Draft — sponsor returns with structured notes (audit action charter.returned; returnNotes carry a severity and a pinned charter section).
• Submitted → Archived — sponsor archives rather than returns.

The single deliberate hard gate is the BCM / Adoption quartet on business case submission. Every other gate is a soft signal.

Return-note classification

Returned-case notes are classified by the sponsor:

Field	Values
Severity (VALID_RETURN_NOTE_SEVERITIES)	Blocker, Significant, Minor
Pinned section (VALID_RETURN_NOTE_SECTIONS)	businessProblem, outcome, returnExpected, adoption, sponsor, steeringCommittee, theme, general

Submitted-case aging

Submitted theses age against the site’s monthly steerco cadence (APPROVAL_AGING_THRESHOLDS): amber at 7 days, red at 14, deep-red at 28. The signal appears on surfaces the sponsor already opens; nothing is emailed.

Initiation (computed)

The morning-after-approval stage. A visible-but-non-blocking checklist composes itself deterministically from the registers (INITIATION_CHECKLIST_ITEMS):

Item ID	Satisfied when
define-work-packages	≥ 3 coarse work packages (INITIATION_MIN_WP_COUNT).
name-owners	every work package has an owner.
set-baselines	every work package has both budget and planned-date baselines locked.
create-adoption-wp	at least one work package of type “Adoption / Change”.
schedule-first-steerco	charter.firstSteercoScheduledFor is set.
seed-rio-register	≥ 3 R/I/O items (INITIATION_MIN_RIO_COUNT).

The newly-approved window is 14 days (INITIATION_NEWLY_APPROVED_WINDOW_DAYS); the checklist recedes when the first steerco is held or the window passes with explicit acknowledgement (initiationDismissals). Checklist items are recommendations, not stipulations.

Delivery (computed)

The long stretch while the investment runs (Approved, in flight). RAG plus self-reported Outcome and Adoption confidence are kept current; materialised risks route to decisions; the since-last-steerco ribbon answers “what’s changed?”

Close-out

• Approved → ClosingSubmitted — PM submits the close-out record (as-built outcome + return, residual R/I/O dispositions, lessons, BAU handover).
• ClosingSubmitted → Closed — sponsor signs off. Terminal.
• Closed → (reopenClosure) — escape valve to reopen.

Dispositions captured at close-out:

Set	Values
R/I/O disposition (VALID_RIO_DISPOSITIONS)	Closed, TransferredToBau, Accepted, Pursued, Dropped
Pending decision/change disposition (VALID_PENDING_DISPOSITIONS)	Adjudicated, Withdrawn, ApprovedAsShipped, DeferredToBau
Per-work-package scope disposition (VALID_SCOPE_DISPOSITIONS)	DeliveredAsChartered, DeliveredReduced, DeliveredExpanded, Dropped, Deferred
BAU handover state (VALID_BAU_HANDOVER_STATES)	Pending, Acknowledged, Escalated

Benefits Realisation

Lifecycle: Closed → InRealisation → Realised | NotRealised → InMaintenance (or terminal).

• 90-day adoption checkpoint, a 6-month prose sniff-check, and a 12-month verdict.
• At the verdict the sponsor declares Realised, NotRealised, or “not ready yet”. The declaration is the governance act; the said/got prose-pair is the artefact. No calculation.

BR review cadence (VALID_BR_CADENCE) is Monthly, Quarterly, or Annual; default Quarterly (DEFAULT_BR_CADENCE). In-window reviews age against BR_REVIEW_AGING_THRESHOLDS (amber 30 days, red 60, deep-red 120).

TODO: confirm with James

The roadmap describes a “Returned” business-case state, but VALID_CHARTER_APPROVAL_STATUSES has no Returned value — a returned case lands back in Draft, with the return captured via the charter.returned audit event and returnNotes. Confirm this is the intended representation.