README.md

The Naked Process Decision Tree

The decision tree is the core practical artifact of Naked Process. It takes your team's context as input and outputs the minimal viable process — the smallest set of practices that addresses your actual constraints.

Dimensions

1. Team Capability

Value	Description
Uniformly strong	All members operate at a high level. Shared mental models. Minimal need for guidance.
Mixed with clear lead	Range of skill levels, but a strong technical lead provides architectural direction.
Junior-heavy / no lead	Most members need guidance. No one capable of making reliable architectural calls.

2. Deployment Capability

Value	Description
Continuous delivery	Can deploy to production at any time. Automated pipeline, feature flags, rollback.
Frequent but batched	Regular releases (weekly/biweekly) but not continuous. Some manual steps.
Infrequent / manual	Releases are rare, painful, and risky. High coordination cost per deployment.

3. Stakeholder Access

Value	Description
Direct and frequent	Team can reach decision-makers quickly. Feedback loops measured in hours.
Mediated	Access through project managers, product owners, or other intermediaries. Days-scale latency.
Absent or adversarial	Stakeholders are unreachable, disengaged, or actively obstructive.

4. Decision Authority

Value	Description
Team-autonomous	Team can make and execute technical and scope decisions without external approval.
Lead-autonomous	A designated lead has authority. Team executes within the lead's architectural vision.
Externally gated	Decisions require approval from outside the team. Committee-driven or politically constrained.

5. Problem Clarity

Value	Description
Genuinely emergent	Requirements cannot be known upfront. True exploration, R&D, or novel domain.
Discoverable	Requirements exist but haven't been gathered yet. Common failure mode: teams running "Agile discovery" on problems that aren't actually uncertain. Needs upfront engineering discipline.
Well-specified	Requirements are clear and stable. Execution-focused. Minimal need for discovery ceremony.

6. Coordination Need

Value	Description
Low	Small team (3–5), co-located or well-aligned remote. Minimal integration points.
Medium	Mid-sized team (6–10) or multiple integration points. Some coordination overhead.
High	Large team, multiple sub-teams, distributed across time zones, complex integration.

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How It Works

The decision tree logic is currently being developed. The goal: for any combination of dimension values, output the minimal set of practices (communication channel, release cadence, feedback mechanism, decision structure) that addresses the team's actual constraints.

The tree subtracts. Given a strong team with CD, direct stakeholders, autonomous decisions, clear requirements, and low coordination — the output approaches zero formal process. Each constraint you add introduces only the practices needed to address that specific constraint.

Status

🔄 In development. The dimensions are stable. The practice decomposition (Step 2) and mapping (Step 3) are in progress.