Checklist

A factory planner checklist is a live outcomes and workstream board that shows done, active, ready-next, and intentionally held work.

What It Is

A checklist is a live outcomes and workstream board used by the factory planner. It shows customer outcomes alongside workstreams in four states: done, active, ready next, and intentionally held. Phase names may appear as optional labels, but they are not mandatory gates that force every stream to wait for a global stage to finish.

Why It Matters

A checklist lets you track customer outcomes, see which workstreams can move in parallel, and record real holds with concrete reasons. Without that board, finished work, ready work, and blocked work collapse into one vague queue, so planners slow safe streams and miss what the customer still needs.

Simple Example

Picture a compact board for a docs rewrite. Customer outcomes: publish the install guide and the run-your-first-factory page. Done: the install guide lane is finished. Active: the checklist concept page is in progress. Ready next: the task-queue concept page can start when a lane frees up. Held: a colliding registry change is already in flight, so that lane waits for a concrete collision reason—not because a phase label says later work must wait.

Common Confusions

A checklist is not a task queue. A task queue is ordered work waiting to run; a checklist is the live outcomes and workstream board that shows done, active, ready next, and held status across streams. A checklist is also not an architectural checklist or a review acceptance-criteria list—those are static verification lists you tick once. And it is not a phase-gated project plan that forces every stream to finish one global phase before the next can start.

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