Projects and the ten disciplines

A project here is not a task list. It's one piece of real work scored against the ten control disciplines of The Control Standard, on a rhythm you keep. Each check-in is an immutable snapshot; the trend across snapshots is the coaching artefact.

The ten disciplines sit in two groups. Group A · Drift Lenses — Ownership, Dated Next Steps, Cadence Management, Stakeholder Control, Commercial Control, Dependency Control, Decision Control — is where control is most often lost day to day. Group B · Additional Control Disciplines — Pillar Clarity, Escalation Discipline, Executive Comms — covers foundations and reporting.

Create a project

1. Open Projects in the sidebar and press New project.
2. Give it a Project name; optionally add a Short description, Status, Classification, Start date and Target date.
3. Pick a Re-scoring cadence — the rhythm you intend to re-score on.
4. Choose Who can see this project?. It defaults to Restricted — only the owner and people you add.
5. Press Create project.

You become the project's owner and first DRI, and land on the mission screen (or the members screen for a restricted project) to finish setup.

Set the mission and pillars

1. From the project dashboard, press Set the mission and fill in the Outcome mission (what the customer needs this project to achieve) and the Delivery mission (what your business needs from it right now). Press Save mission.
2. Open Manage next to Pillars and add 3–5 pillars — the things that must hold for the project to work — with Add pillar.

Until both missions are set, the project card shows a Mission gap pill and every check-in's named status reads Mission Alignment Gap, whatever you score. That's the gate working as intended: without clarity on what the project is for, the disciplines you're controlling may not be the right ones. Both edits keep a version history you can restore from.

Submit a weekly check-in

1. Press Submit check-in on the project dashboard. A practised user finishes in under five minutes.
2. Confirm Mission alignment: tick This still holds. under both missions. Leave either unticked and the status records as Mission Alignment Gap. You can edit the mission inline without losing the form.
3. Score each of the ten disciplines by tapping a 1–5 pill. Expand a row for the key question and the five level descriptions, and add Optional notes for context. Scores prefill from your last check-in.
4. Answer the narrative prompts: What changed since the last check-in?, What is most at risk right now?, What is the next control point? and Is anything drifting?.
5. If leadership attention is needed, tick Escalating with this check-in and use Notes (optional) to state the ask and options.
6. Press Submit check-in.

The aggregate Control Index score is the mean of your discipline scores out of 5, and the named status is distribution-aware — one Failing discipline with the rest healthy reads Critical Failure Point, while three read Control Has Broken Down. The mean alone is never the whole story.

Capture a control point as you check in

Under the narrative, open Capture this as a control point with a date and owner and set both Target date and Owner. The narrative stays as the reflection; the structured row is the commitment that gets watched, with the owner emailed if the date passes without an update. See control-points.

Add project members and the DRI

1. For a restricted project, open Manage next to the access card (or See who has access), choose the Person to grant access to and press Add member. Remove takes access away; the owner always has access.
2. To hand over accountability, press Edit next to Directly responsible, pick the new DRI and press Save DRI — or change the Directly responsible field during any check-in. Previous assignments are kept and restorable.

Review score history

1. Press Score history on the project dashboard.

You'll see the aggregate score over time, per-discipline trends, and a tabular history of every check-in — the evidence base for the printable report. See project-reports.

Who can do this

Everyone on every plan can create projects and submit check-ins on projects they can see. Restricted projects are visible only to the owner, added members, and managers. Project settings, visibility, members and the DRI editor are owner-and-manager only. Back-dating a check-in with Report date (and promoting a snapshot into a check-in) is on paid plans.