Procedures
Production blocker procedures
Production blocker procedures allow for organization members to suspend work on domains of work where if not suspended, continuation of such work would lead to negative or sub-optimal outcomes.
Once initiated, team leaders should act on these procedures by communicating with the relevant stakeholders to resolve the condition that lead to the stop procedure being initiated for.
STOP
Stop procedure, or STOP, allows for any team leader to suspend a work on a task, task complex (goal) or perimeter of implementation - set of related goals, tasks, etc under their personal authority, if the team leader believes continuation of work on the subject of STOP would produce net-negative result unless immediately acted upon.
Stop procedure should result in an immediate pause of any progress on the subject that the stop procedure was called for and meeting between whoever invokes the stop procedure, and any stakeholders that could help resolve the conditions that resulted in the STOP call, such as goal owner and others.
Stop procedure is considered a blocker condition that once declared would naturally prevent any work from continuing. STOP should also be considered low-to-high emergency, meaning it should not be invoked to solve mundane and everyday issues.
Any member of a team can request team leader to call for STOP procedure, however, it is up to the team leader to determine if the condition and urgency warrants the STOP.
HOLD
Hold procedure, or HOLD, is very similar to STOP with the main difference in that the level of urgency for triage of the condition cause of HOLD should be significantly lower than the urgency for triage of STOP. With HOLD, all relevant work is also suspended, however, HOLD indicates a significantly lower level of urgency when compared to STOP.
HOLD should be considered a "last-mile there is a better way to do this" condition, and should be casually used when additional information about work subject is discovered, such that acting upon this information could lead to potential net-gain or prevent a net-negative outcome.
Any member of a team can request team leader to call for HOLD procedure, however, it is up to the team leader to determine if the condition warrants the HOLD.