This chapter summarizes the execution discipline that governs the lifecycle of active, client-facing enterprise SOWs at Zeta.
1. The Five Phases of Engagement
Zeta's delivery model rejects ad-hoc project management in favor of a repeatable, phase-gated engineering methodology. Every active client engagement must progress sequentially through the following five phases:
- Initiate (SOW Setup & Bootstrap):
- Primary Work: Scoping, pricing, and initial bootstrap environment deployment.
- System Tooling: ERE (Engagement Readiness Engineering) tools, standard solution archetypes.
- C3M Gate: Engagement Readiness Council (ERC) review and authorization.
- Discover (Value Stream & Solution Design):
- Primary Work: Collaborative gap-analysis, BRD (Business Requirements Document) authoring, and custom configuration mapping.
- System Tooling: ERE requirements agents, UPIM product taxonomy schemas.
- C3M Gate: Platform Architecture Council (PAC) review and gap-analysis certification.
- Build (Assembly, Configuration & Verification):
- Primary Work: Custom configuration writing, platform variability settings adjustment, inner-source contribution (if platform gaps are identified), and rigorous verification.
- System Tooling: EWE (Engagement Win Engineering) tenant-config tools, AVA (Automated Verification Agent) platforms.
- C3M Gate: Verification Squad certification.
- Transfer (Transition & Run Integration):
- Primary Work: Custom data migrations, customer staff training, L1–L3 support desk setup, and production deployment.
- System Tooling: SRE runtime foundation pipelines, data-migration kits.
- C3M Gate: SRE Site Assurance & Run Architecture Oversight check-off.
- Complete (Steady-State Value Realization):
- Primary Work: Hand-off of the customer instance to the Outcomes CoEs for steady-state running and subscription billing scaling.
- System Tooling: Billing engines, SRE operations dashboard, customer support desks.
- C3M Gate: ERC formal close-out.
2. Reading Path and Guide Placement Note
This chapter serves as a high-level architectural overview. The complete, practitioner-level operational manuals, checklists, and templates are maintained in our external repository folders:
- Practitioner Reference: For the exhaustive, step-by-step execution guides for each of these phases, practitioners must refer to the specialized
engagement/directory. - Operational Law: The processes detailed in the
engagement/directory are the non-bypassable operational standards of the Engagement Factory. Any deviation from those guides represents an architectural violation.