Product development lifecycle (PDLC)

Reusable, product-agnostic blueprint for the full product lifecycle — from problem discovery through growth and sunset. It answers "are we building the right product?" while Software delivery answers "are we building the…

Guide · Updated · Source

SDLC phases A–F sit inside the PDLC as the Build & Release engine; PDLC wraps around them with upstream validation and downstream outcome measurement.

Document Purpose
Product development lifecycle (PDLC) Phases P1–P6, artifacts, exit criteria, roles — includes benchmark map vs a common seven-phase reference pattern
PDLC ↔ SDLC bridge How PDLC and SDLC relate — diagrams, role mapping, artifact handoffs, worked example
approaches/ Deeper guides: Dual-Track Agile, Stage-Gate, Design Thinking, Lean Startup, PLM, Opportunity Solution Trees
templates/ Copy-paste starters: vision, experiment log, stage-gate review, metrics, GTM, sunset plan

Relationship to other packages

Package How PDLC relates
Software delivery SDLC phases A–F are the delivery engine inside PDLC phases P3→P4. See PDLC ↔ SDLC bridge.
Product functional documentation blueprint Product-functional docs (docs/product/) hold the living artifacts that PDLC phases produce — vision, personas, journeys, capabilities.
Project management (PM) PM provides the governance layer between PDLC strategy and SDLC delivery — schedule, budget, risk, stakeholder management. PDLC decides what to build; PM governs how the execution is managed. See PM ↔ SDLC ↔ PDLC bridge.
Business analysis (BA) BA provides the analytical techniques that PDLC phases rely on — Strategy Analysis maps to P1–P3, Elicitation feeds P1–P2 discovery, Solution Evaluation maps to P5–P6. See BA ↔ SDLC ↔ PDLC bridge.
Agents blueprint (automation) Automation recipes may support PDLC activities (e.g. analytics collection, A/B test infrastructure).

Adopt in your repo

  1. Copy or submodule blueprints/pdlc/ alongside blueprints/sdlc/.
  2. Copy templates from templates/ into your project's docs/product/ or equivalent.
  3. Use Product development lifecycle (PDLC) to orient your team on where product work lives relative to delivery work.
  4. If you already use blueprints/sdlc/, read PDLC ↔ SDLC bridge to understand handoff points.

Canonical source is this repository on main. See Blueprint policy — do not change casually for change rules.