Track · Frameworks

Frameworks

The Dojo's shared language for strategy, planning, building and running a product: UBF, STAR, ORBITAL, ANDROID Ops, PHANTOMS and Launch Sequence, taught for the Product Development Manager who works across every discipline and directs AI agents.

In short

This track gives a whole product team one shared language. A founder, a designer, a finance colleague and a developer can all use it. The frameworks work at different scales. UBF maps the industry you are in. STAR describes one project. ORBITAL plans one product: what you want, spend, measure and do. ANDROID Ops shows how work flows from idea to delivery. PHANTOMS gives agents a known stack to build on. Launch Sequence lists the proof you need before real users. Mission Control keeps the live product healthy. The frameworks come from a business incubator. They are not industry standards, so test them against facts.

You turn an ORBITAL plan into epics, a roadmap and issues. Agents draft the routine parts. You decide, verify and keep every decision in git. This track places each framework on the agent ladder: use, delegate, orchestrate, govern.

Key words

ORBITAL: The catalogue layer for objective, resources, budget, indicators, transport, activities and logistics.
PHANTOMS: A pattern of jobs and default tools that agents can build a product on.
Epic: A whole-product outcome across several repos. Weeks to months. Written by a human.
Roadmap: Epics laid out in order over time.
Agent ladder: Four rungs of skill with AI agents: use, delegate, orchestrate and govern. Each rung needs different skills.

Developer Dojo trains the 2030 Product Development Manager (PDM): a person who blends strategy, product, design, brand, finance, operations, security and engineering, and who treats AI agents as the workforce for routine work. The agents write code, tests, draft documents and research notes. The PDM decides what to build and why, frames the problem, owns the epics and the roadmap, directs the agents, verifies what they return, manages the risk and ships to real people.

Your skill with agents is a ladder: use one agent, delegate whole tasks with a brief, orchestrate many sessions in a command chain (Session, Commander, Chief of Command, Admiral), and govern them with written policy, hooks and gates. This track places each framework on that ladder, and the advanced agent orchestration track goes deep on the top two rungs.

To work across so many disciplines you need a shared language: a small set of pictures and questions that a founder, a designer, a marketer, a finance colleague, an operations lead and a developer can all use. This track teaches that language. It is the interdisciplinary core of the Dojo.

Who this track is for

Developers who want to move from “tasks someone gave me” to “a product I own”.
Career changers coming from business, design, marketing, finance or operations who want to work with developers and agents on equal terms.
Mentors and sponsors who want one vocabulary for reviewing a product.

You need no technical background for the first half. You need curiosity and a product idea, real or the fictional TrailMug, the reusable-cup service for cafés that runs through all the Dojo pages.

What the frameworks are, and are not

The frameworks come from World Enterprise Group, a business incubator. They use space words (galaxies, stars, moons, orbits) because the metaphor is easy to remember. They are not official industry standards. We rewrote them in plain words, removed claims we cannot support, and put them next to well-known outside ideas so you can compare. Use what helps. Test everything against facts. Keep your decisions in git.

The frameworks at a glance

Scale	Framework	Question
Industry	UBF, the Universal Business Framework	What world are we in? What could change it?
Project	STAR: Space, Track, Assist, Reach	Where does it sit, where does it go, how does it connect, what will it reach?
Product plan	ORBITAL: Objective, Resources, Budget, Indicators, Transport, Activities, Logistics	What do we want, need, spend, measure, move and do?
Build and run	ANDROID Ops and DROID Ops	How does work flow from idea to delivery?
Technology	PHANTOMS, a family of agent-ready stacks	What do we start with?
Shipping	Launch Sequence	What proof do we need before real users?
Operating	Mission Control	Is it healthy, and who acts if not?

The lessons

Start here (lessons 1 to 4)

The frameworks map: the whole picture, who uses each framework and what the developer adds.
The SuperNova path: the eight stages from DREAM to Event Horizon.
Frameworks cheat sheet: every acronym spelled out.
Directing agents across the frameworks: droid cards, context files and verification.

UBF: the business galaxy (lessons 5 to 7)

STAR and SHIFT (lessons 8 to 10)

ORBITAL (lessons 11 to 16)

ANDROID Ops, Launch Sequence, Mission Control and the capstone (lessons 20 onward)

These lessons start with Why a new operating model and continue with the seven ANDROID Ops focus areas, DROID Ops, Launch Sequence, Mission Control and an interdisciplinary capstone that takes TrailMug from idea to running product, with pages that show how designers, marketers, finance and operations people use the same frameworks. The technology lessons live in the separate PHANTOMS stack track.

How it maps to the Developer programme

Week 1 and 2 (see the whole product, know the people): lessons 1, 2, 5 and 8.
Week 3 (problems to epics and roadmap): lessons 11 to 16, because an ORBITAL turns into milestones.
Week 4 (defend the roadmap, stakeholders, AI agents in practice): lessons 4, 9 and 10.
Week 5 and 6 (brand, website, catalogue, final Product Package): the Product Catalogue standard uses ORBITAL and ANDROID as two of its four lenses, and the Product Package draws on all of them.
Master Developer: the later lessons on operating model, launch and Mission Control.

How the lessons build

Each lesson follows the same shape: why it matters, the key ideas, step-by-step method, a TrailMug example, how to work with agents (what you decide, what an agent drafts, how you verify), common mistakes, a practice exercise that ends in a file in your git repository, and a checklist. Each ends with free outside learning that we checked on the day we added it. By the end you will have a small folder of planning files, frameworks/, that describes your product at every scale.

Time needed

About 45 to 60 minutes per lesson including the exercise. The first four lessons take an afternoon. The UBF, STAR and ORBITAL lessons are best spread over two to three weeks, alongside real work on your own product.

The rules do not change

People write epics and roadmaps; AI never does. Git is the source of truth. Open source first. Fix forward. Disclose AI use. See The Way.

Lessons

Lessons in order

You mark a lesson done at the end of the lesson. This is saved only in this browser, on this device. It is not a grade and not a certificate.

The frameworks mapFoundation55 min
One picture of how UBF, STAR, ORBITAL, ANDROID Ops, DROID Ops, PHANTOMS and Launch Sequence fit together, from the whole industry down to one line of code.
The SuperNova pathFoundation60 min
The eight stages an idea passes through from first dream to a product that has taken off, rewritten in plain words, with what each stage produces and what a developer does in it.
Frameworks cheat sheetFoundation30 min
Every framework and acronym in the track, spelled out with one line each, the question it answers and the artefact it produces. Keep it open while you work.
Directing agents across the frameworksCore60 min
How a Product Development Manager hands the routine work at every scale to AI agents, keeps the decisions, and verifies what comes back, using droid cards and a shared context file.
UBF: the business galaxyFoundation60 min
The Universal Business Framework pictures an industry as a galaxy. Learn every term, and use the map to choose integrations, spot platform risk and read big events.
NAICS, SIC and your galaxyFoundation55 min
How to use official industry codes (NAICS, SIC, and the international ISIC and NACE) to define the boundary of a galaxy, find real data about it and avoid arguing about words.
UBF, consulting levels and decisionsCore60 min
Five altitudes of advice, from the whole industry down to hands-on building, and a simple portfolio method that uses UBF to decide what to start, grow, watch or stop across many projects.
STAR: describe a projectFoundation60 min
Space, Track, Assist and Reach: four questions that let anyone see where a project sits, where it is going, how others plug into it and what it will achieve.
STAR in daily workCore55 min
Use SMART and STAR together for daily stand-ups and task reports, and see how STAR feeds the roadmap, the integrations register, the galaxy page and the ORBITAL indicators.
SHIFT: the focus shiftCore50 min
A focus shift is a protected four-hour block used to change a project's course. Learn when to call one, how to plan it with the seven ANDROID activities and how to judge whether the plan is good.
ORBITAL: objective, resources and budgetCore65 min
The first three letters of ORBITAL. Write one measurable objective, list what you need to reach it, and plan the money in time order, with a clear split between what you decide and what an agent drafts.
ORBITAL: indicators, KPIs and the SDGsCore65 min
Choose the numbers that tell you whether a product works. Learn what a KPI is, how to pick a few good ones, how to link a plan to the UN Sustainable Development Goals without overclaiming, and how to check an agent's data work.
ORBITAL: transport for softwareCore65 min
Transport is how goods, data, energy and value move from A to B. For a software product that means interfaces, data flows, files, releases and, often, physical things too. Learn to map them, choose a mode and judge what an agent proposes.
ORBITAL: activities and logisticsCore70 min
The last two letters of ORBITAL. Break the plan into tasks and milestones in time order, then add the glue that keeps it running: coordination, communication, risks and a plan for learning. Decide, delegate and verify with agents.
ORBITAL: TrailMug in fullCore60 min
One complete ORBITAL plan for the fictional TrailMug pilot, all seven letters on a page you can copy, plus a review method that tests whether the letters agree with each other.
From ORBITAL to milestones and issuesCore70 min
Turn a finished ORBITAL plan into GitLab milestones, issues and labels that people and agents can work from. The plan stays yours, and the issues carry its limits, its proofs and its owners.
Why a new operating modelCore50 min
Waterfall, Agile, DevOps and MLOps each solved one problem. ANDROID Ops joins them into one loop that a Product Development Manager can run with people and AI agents.
ANDROID focus areas 1 to 4: Advance, Network, Design, ResearchCore60 min
The first four ANDROID Ops focus areas in depth: what each one is for, the activities inside it, who does what, what the Product Development Manager does, and what agents can take.
ANDROID focus areas 5 to 7: Optimize, Implement, DeliverCore60 min
The last three ANDROID Ops focus areas in depth: measure and improve, build and test with agents under your direction, and release and support with proof.
DROID Ops for programmes, content and trainingCore50 min
The lighter five-step loop (Design, Research, Optimize, Integrate, Deliver) for training, content and programme work, using the Dojo itself as the example.
Running ANDROID Ops in GitLabCore70 min
Set up labels, milestones, issues, boards, pipelines and change records so the seven focus areas run in git, with people and AI agents sharing one visible plan.
Launch Sequence: six stages from commit to productionCore60 min
How a product goes from a change in git to running in production with proof at every step: source assurance, supply chain, artifact security, deployment, governance and go-to-market.
Supply chain and artifact security: SBOMs, signing and SLSAAdvanced65 min
How to know what is inside your product, where it came from and that nobody changed it on the way, using SBOMs, vulnerability scans, signatures and SLSA levels.
Deployment, governance and go-to-marketAdvanced65 min
Release through git with GitOps, roll out in small steps, keep change records and audit evidence, and treat go-to-market material as part of done.
Mission Control, GROWTH and Event HorizonAdvanced65 min
How launched products are watched and steered: dashboards, service level objectives, incidents and reviews, plus the GROWTH Accelerator and the Event Horizon idea from SuperNova.
Launch Specialist and Mission Control careersAdvanced50 min
What a Launch Specialist, a Command Engineer and a Deployment Team member do, which skills they use, how they work with AI agents, and how to build evidence of the skills in git.
Capstone: one product through every framework (overview and DREAM discovery)Advanced70 min
The capstone follows the fictional TrailMug from a first idea to a growing product, showing at each step the artefact, the roles, what the Product Development Manager does and what agents do. This first lesson gives the map and runs the DREAM discovery.
Capstone: UBF landscape, STAR daily work and ORBITAL planAdvanced75 min
Place TrailMug in its industry landscape with UBF, run daily work with S.M.A.R.T. STAR notes and four-hour Focus Shifts, and write the whole-product ORBITAL plan, with the roles and agent work at each step.
Capstone: catalogue, personas, journeys and the epic roadmapAdvanced80 min
Take stock of what exists with the product catalogue, learn who the product is for with personas and journeys, and turn the gaps into an epic roadmap that a person writes, with the roles and agent work at each step.
Capstone: build the first epics with ANDROID Ops on PHANTOMSAdvanced90 min
Run the build as a Product Development Manager who orchestrates a command chain of agent sessions bounded by written policy and gates, using ANDROID Ops focus areas and a PHANTOMS family stack, with a human decision at every gate.
Capstone: launch through six stages and run Mission ControlAdvanced90 min
Take the TrailMug epic through the six Launch Sequence stages with a human decision at each gate, set up a Mission Control board with service levels, and run a first incident drill, as a PDM supervising people and agent sessions.
Capstone: GROWTH and the whole productAdvanced75 min
Close the capstone loop with the GROWTH Accelerator, turn the Event Horizon into a measurable hypothesis, and review who did what across all eleven steps, people and agent sessions, as the Product Development Manager who owns the whole.
Role lenses: one shared language for every disciplineCore45 min
How founders, product managers, designers, marketers, finance and operations people and developers use the same frameworks, what changes in each seat, and how the Product Development Manager blends them while directing agent sessions.
Role lens: the founderCore45 min
How a founder uses DREAM, STAR, ORBITAL, ANDROID Ops, Launch Sequence and GROWTH to decide what is worth building, what to hand to agent sessions, and how to verify the work, with a TrailMug example.
Role lens: product managementCore45 min
How a product manager uses UBF, personas and journeys, epics, roadmaps and ANDROID Ops to decide what to build and in what order, how agent sessions help with research and checks, and how to verify their work.
Role lens: designCore45 min
How a designer uses DREAM, personas and journeys, the ANDROID Ops Design focus area and accessibility standards to shape what people experience, how agent sessions help draft and check, and how a PDM verifies design work.
Role lens: marketing and growthCore45 min
How a marketer uses DREAM, personas, Launch Sequence stage six and the GROWTH review to reach the right people honestly, how agent sessions draft and measure under policy, and how to verify claims before anything is published.
Role lens: finance and operationsCore55 min
How finance and operations people use ORBITAL budgets, FinOps habits, Mission Control, service levels and incident roles to keep a product affordable and running, how agent sessions help under policy, and how to verify their output.
Role lens: the developer as Product Development ManagerAdvanced60 min
How the developer's role changes when agent sessions write much of the code: the PDM directs a command chain bounded by policy and gates, specifies, reviews and verifies, and still owns quality, security and release.

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