05 - Delivery Model And Release Train

Delivery Model

  • Dual-track model: discovery and delivery in parallel with shared weekly planning.

  • Team topology: four cross-functional pods.

  • Sprint cadence: 2 weeks with mid-sprint quality check.

Pods:

  • Learner Experience Pod: session UX, learner engagement, and progress reporting.

  • Tutor Operations Pod: matching, scheduling, continuity, and tutor quality tooling.

  • Growth And Revenue Pod: acquisition funnel, onboarding, plans, and billing.

  • Platform Trust Pod: reliability, privacy, compliance, and core infrastructure.

Release Train

Release Type

Frequency

Approval Path

Typical Scope

Patch

Weekly

Engineering manager

Bug fixes, scheduling and support fixes, low-risk UX changes

Minor

Monthly

Product + Engineering

Conversion, session, and progress experience improvements

Major

Quarterly

Product council + Revenue

MVP/MSP capability milestones and pricing/packaging changes

Environment Strategy

  • Dev, staging, production separation with synthetic data in non-prod.

  • Feature flags for controlled rollout by cohort/segment/channel.

  • Canary releases for high-risk changes.

  • Blue/green deploy for major releases affecting learner runtime or billing.

Quality Gates

  • Automated tests passing (unit, integration, end-to-end).

  • Curriculum QA signoff for student-facing reading content updates.

  • Accessibility checks for WCAG 2.1 AA on critical learning flows.

  • Live session quality checks (audio/video stability and reconnect behavior).

  • Tutor operations QA for matching and scheduling workflows.

  • SLO impact reviewed.

  • Security checks complete.

  • Rollback runbook verified.

Post-Release Review

  • KPI movement at D+7, D+30, D+90.

  • Learning progression and family confidence readout at week 6 and week 12 for major changes.

  • Incident and support ticket trend.

  • Follow-up actions and ownership.

MVP To MSP Delivery Phases

  1. MVP build (Q2 2026): free intake, matching, scheduling, and reading session core.

  2. MVP hardening (Q3 2026): improve conversion, attendance, continuity, and progress reporting.

  3. MSP readiness (Q4 2026): plan matrix, retention automations, group option, and trust package.