Beyond the Convoy

• 1: Shore Leave
• 2: The Armada
• 3: Harbor Review
• 4: Dry Dock

1 - Shore Leave

Between convoys, teams are granted Shore Leave: a brief period where Code Engineers are free to explore new technologies, reduce technical debt, and pursue innovative ideas. This ensures the organization maintains a culture of continuous learning and creativity.

Approved Shore Leave Activities

To ensure Shore Leave time is used productively, the Admiral’s Transformation Office maintains an approved activity list. Activities not on this list require a Shore Leave Exemption Request (SLER) approved by the Commodore.

Approved activities include:

• Completing mandatory compliance training modules
• Updating personal SADMF Maturity Score assessments
• Preparing presentation materials for the next Convoy Alignment
• Filing overdue Post-Standup Standup Review reports
• Studying for SAD certification renewal exams
• Attending cross-functional awareness workshops organized by the DOUCHE

Innovation Proposals

Code Engineers who wish to pursue innovative ideas during Shore Leave must submit an Innovation Proposal Package (IPP) containing:

• A business case with projected ROI over 8 quarters
• Architectural approval from the EARB
• A risk assessment reviewed by the CRAP
• Sign-off from at least three Feature Captains confirming the innovation will not impact their features
• A rollback plan in case the innovation succeeds and causes organizational disruption

Innovation Proposals are reviewed on a quarterly cadence. Approved proposals may be scheduled for implementation in a future convoy, subject to WSVF prioritization.

Shore Leave Duration

Shore Leave is nominally one week between convoy cycles. However, any overdue Convoy Manifest documentation, incomplete status reports, or pending Tribunal follow-up actions must be completed first. In practice, most teams begin their next Convoy Alignment preparation on Shore Leave day two.

See Also

• Convoy Alignment for the planning session that follows Shore Leave
• Convoy Ceremonies for the ceremonies that resume after Shore Leave
• Certifications for certification renewal during Shore Leave
• SADMF Maturity Score for the maturity assessments completed during Shore Leave

2 - The Armada

When a single DevOps Release Convoy™ is insufficient for the scale of the enterprise, multiple convoys are assembled into an Armada. The Armada provides the coordination layer necessary to ensure that convoys operating independently can be brought into alignment through additional meetings, documentation, and oversight.

When to Form an Armada

An Armada should be formed when any of the following conditions are met:

• More than 3 Feature Teams exist across the organization
• Two or more convoys share a dependency, even if the dependency is theoretical
• An executive requests “better visibility” into cross-convoy delivery
• The organization has hired enough Feature Captains to warrant a captain’s captain

Armada Command Structure

The Armada is commanded by an Admiral, who outranks all Commodores and reports directly to the Admiral’s Transformation Office. The Admiral’s responsibilities include:

• Chairing the Convoy of Convoys Alignment (a 10-day planning event held quarterly)
• Reviewing and approving each convoy’s Nautical Charts
• Mediating priority disputes between Commodores using WSVF scores
• Producing the weekly Armada Status Folio, a comprehensive report consolidating all convoy status reports into a single document that no one reads

The Super-Manifest

Each convoy produces its own Convoy Manifest. The Armada requires an additional Super-Manifest that aggregates all convoy manifests and adds:

• Cross-convoy dependency declarations, signed by all affected Commodores
• An Armada-level risk register maintained by the DIAT
• Integration sequence diagrams showing the order in which convoys should deploy, overriding any convoy-level deployment decisions
• A cover page with the Armada’s chosen name and heraldic crest (each Armada must have a unique crest approved by the ATO)

Convoy of Convoys Alignment

This 10-day event brings together all Commodores, Feature Captains, and selected Code Engineers from every convoy. The first five days mirror the standard Convoy Alignment format. The second five days are dedicated to cross-convoy dependency negotiation, where teams discover that the dependencies identified during the first five days have already changed.

Attendance is in-person at a venue selected by the Admiral. The venue must be in a different city than the previous Convoy of Convoys to ensure the team-building benefits of shared travel disruption.

Armada Ceremonies

In addition to each convoy’s own ceremonies, the Armada introduces:

• Admiral’s Standup: A daily 90-minute standing meeting where each Commodore briefs the Admiral on convoy progress. Standing is mandatory to encourage brevity, though brevity has never been achieved.
• Cross-Convoy Sync: A weekly meeting where representatives from each convoy share updates that were already shared in the Admiral’s Standup, but in a different format.
• Armada Fleet Inspection: A two-day event aggregating all convoy Fleet Inspections into a single marathon review session. Features are re-presented to the Admiral regardless of whether they passed their convoy-level inspection.

See Also

• DevOps Release Convoy for the single-convoy process the Armada coordinates
• Convoy Alignment for the planning format scaled up in the Convoy of Convoys
• Nautical Charts for dependency visualization across convoys
• Admiral’s Transformation Office for the body that oversees Armadas

3 - Harbor Review

At the conclusion of each convoy cycle, the Harbor Review ceremony provides a structured opportunity to reflect on what went well, what could be improved, and what we will definitely not change. The Commodore facilitates the review by asking each Feature Captain to submit three items in each category before the meeting. This pre-submission requirement ensures the meeting proceeds efficiently and prevents any spontaneous observations that might catch the Commodore off guard. The Harbor Review is the SADMF’s commitment to continuous improvement, or more precisely, to the continuous discussion of improvement.

The Three Categories

The Harbor Review organizes all observations into three official categories. Fair Winds captures what went well during the convoy cycle. Examples include “the SAD Update form was filed on time every day” and “no one was formally referred to the Tribunal.” Fair Winds items are read aloud and met with polite applause. Rough Seas captures what could be improved. All Rough Seas observations must be phrased as opportunities: “The build was broken for 3 weeks” becomes “We have an opportunity to reduce build recovery time.” “We spent 40% of our time in meetings” becomes “We have an opportunity to optimize our ceremony participation efficiency.” Any observation phrased as a complaint, criticism, or, worst of all, a root cause analysis implicating the framework itself is tabled by the Commodore under the standing rule that systemic observations require a separate forum that has not yet been scheduled. Anchors captures what will remain the same. The Anchors category consistently contains the most items, reflecting the organization’s healthy respect for stability and its recognition that most processes are already optimal.

The Harbor Review Action Log

Action items from the Harbor Review are recorded in the Harbor Review Action Log, a living document maintained by the Chief Signals Officer. Each action item is recorded with the following fields: Action Description, Owner, Target Completion Date, and Actual Completion Date. The Actual Completion Date field supports three values: a date, “In Progress,” or “Carried Forward.” Historical analysis of the Action Log reveals that 94% of action items are carried forward to the next Harbor Review, where they are read aloud, acknowledged, and carried forward again. The same items have been carried forward for six or more consecutive convoys, creating a comforting sense of organizational continuity and demonstrating the team’s commitment to long-term improvement planning. An action item is never closed as “Not Done” or “Abandoned”, it is simply carried forward indefinitely, ensuring that the organization never gives up on its aspirations, even the ones no one can remember the origin of.

Language Guidelines

To ensure the Harbor Review does not become a negative experience, the SADMF enforces strict language guidelines. The word “blame” may not be spoken during the Harbor Review; the approved alternative is “attribution.” The word “failure” is replaced with “learning opportunity.” The word “problem” is replaced with “growth area.” The phrase “this doesn’t work” is replaced with “this has unrealized potential.” The Commodore reserves the right to interrupt any participant who uses prohibited language and redirect the conversation toward a more constructive framing. Participants who repeatedly use negative language may be referred for additional SADMF Mindset coaching, a two-day workshop focused on reframing organizational dysfunction as organizational character.

The Harbor Review Satisfaction Survey

Following each Harbor Review, all participants are required to complete the Harbor Review Satisfaction Survey (HRSS), a meta-retrospective instrument that measures whether the team found the retrospective itself to be a valuable use of time. The HRSS contains 12 questions rated on a Likert scale, including “I felt heard during the Harbor Review,” “The Harbor Review was an appropriate length,” and “I am confident that action items from this Harbor Review will be addressed before the next Harbor Review.” The results of the HRSS are compiled by the Chief Signals Officer and presented at the beginning of the next Harbor Review, creating a recursive feedback loop in which the team retrospects on its retrospective and will, in the following cycle, retrospect on its retrospective of the retrospective. HRSS scores below 4.0 trigger a Harbor Review Improvement Initiative, which generates its own action items that are added to the Harbor Review Action Log and carried forward.

The Commodore’s Closing Remarks

The Harbor Review concludes with the Commodore’s closing remarks, a prepared statement that acknowledges the team’s hard work, celebrates the Fair Winds, expresses optimism about the Rough Seas (“These opportunities will make us stronger”), and affirms the wisdom of the Anchors (“Our foundation remains solid”). The closing remarks are substantially identical from one Harbor Review to the next, which the SADMF considers a sign of message consistency rather than a lack of genuine reflection. The Commodore then officially closes the convoy cycle and grants the team Shore Leave, a brief recovery period before the next Convoy Alignment begins the cycle anew.

See Also

• Commodore for the role that facilitates the Harbor Review and delivers closing remarks
• Feature Captain for the role that pre-submits observations in each category
• Chief Signals Officer for the role that maintains the Action Log and compiles the HRSS
• Shore Leave for the recovery period that follows the Harbor Review

4 - Dry Dock

It’s normal for a little damage to occur when we are moving so quickly. Defects will accumulate. The Dry Dock is the process of halting feature development for a few weeks so that repairs can be made. Every high-performing convoy will sustain wear during its voyage, and the Dry Dock provides a structured opportunity to address that wear before the next cycle begins. It is a testament to the framework’s maturity that defect remediation has its own dedicated ceremony rather than being expected to happen alongside feature delivery.

Scheduled Duration vs. Actual Duration

Dry Dock is formally scheduled for two weeks at the conclusion of each convoy cycle. However, the Commodore retains the authority to adjust this duration based on the feature backlog for the upcoming convoy. In practice, this means Dry Dock is typically reduced to one week after the first day of planning, then further compressed to three days once the Commodore reviews the upcoming quarter’s commitments. In one documented instance, Dry Dock was reduced to a single afternoon, during which Code Engineers were asked to “fix what they can during lunch.” The Commodore views this flexibility as evidence of the organization’s ability to balance quality with delivery, rather than as a structural failure to allocate time for defect remediation.

Defect Prioritization

During Dry Dock, not all defects receive equal attention. The Dry Dock Triage Board, chaired by the Commodore, categorizes defects into three tiers:

• Tier 1: Executive-Visible Defects – Defects that have been observed or reported by senior leadership. These receive immediate attention and dedicated Code Engineer resources.
• Tier 2: Customer-Reported Defects – Defects reported by external customers. These are addressed if time permits after Tier 1 defects are resolved.
• Tier 3: Everything Else – Defects identified by Code Engineers, the testing team, or automated systems. These are documented for the record but are rarely addressed during Dry Dock due to time constraints.

This prioritization ensures that the most strategically important defects are fixed first, where strategic importance is measured by the seniority of the person who noticed the defect.

The Dry Dock Manifest

All defect remediation work during Dry Dock must be documented in the Dry Dock Manifest, a supplement to the Convoy Manifest. The Dry Dock Manifest includes the defect identifier, the assigned Code Engineer, the estimated fix time, the actual fix time, and a root cause category selected from an approved list. The approved root cause categories are: “Code Engineer Error,” “Insufficient Testing,” “Unclear Requirements (attributed to Code Engineer interpretation),” and “Other (requires explanation).” The Dry Dock Manifest is filed with the Chief Signals Officer and influences the Feature Completion Ratio for the completed convoy.

Reclassification of Unfixed Defects

Defects that are not resolved during Dry Dock undergo a reclassification process. Rather than carrying forward as open defects, which would negatively impact the convoy’s quality metrics, unresolved defects are reclassified as “known behaviors.” Known behaviors are removed from the active defect backlog and placed in a separate Known Behavior Registry. This registry is maintained by the DIAT but is not included in any dashboard or reporting metric. The reclassification ensures that the defect count accurately reflects the organization’s quality posture, which is to say, it reflects the number of defects the organization has chosen to acknowledge.

The Deep Dry Dock Proposal

For several convoy cycles, senior Code Engineers have proposed an annual “Deep Dry Dock” of four to six weeks, dedicated to addressing systemic technical debt, architectural deficiencies, and the contents of the Known Behavior Registry. The proposal has been submitted through proper channels, reviewed by the Commodore, and deferred to the following quarter in every instance. The Deep Dry Dock remains on the strategic roadmap as a future initiative, demonstrating the organization’s long-term commitment to quality. Its consistent deferral is attributed to the success of regular Dry Dock in keeping defect counts at acceptable levels, which is itself a product of the reclassification process described above.

See Also

• Commodore for the role that determines Dry Dock duration
• Feature Completion Ratio for how Dry Dock outcomes affect convoy metrics
• Convoy Manifest for the documentation that includes the Dry Dock Manifest
• Development Integrity Assurance Team (DIAT) for who maintains the Known Behavior Registry
• Tribunal for where recurring defect creators are addressed
• Standing Ceremonies for the phase-independent ceremonies that operate throughout the cycle