Phases

Phases organize work into time-bounded periods, typically quarters, allowing teams to plan incremental progress toward maturity goals.

Phase Structure

A phase contains:

• Identity: ID, name, description
• Time bounds: Quarter, year, start date, end date
• Status: planning, in_progress, completed
• Goal targets: Enter and exit maturity levels for each goal
• Swimlanes: Grouped initiatives by domain

Phase Statuses

Status	Description
planning	Phase is being planned, not yet started
in_progress	Phase is currently active
completed	Phase has ended

Goal Targets

Each phase specifies target maturity levels for goals:

{
  "goalTargets": [
    {
      "goalId": "goal-reliability",
      "enterLevel": 2,
      "exitLevel": 3
    },
    {
      "goalId": "goal-velocity",
      "enterLevel": 2,
      "exitLevel": 3
    }
  ]
}

• enterLevel: Expected maturity at phase start
• exitLevel: Target maturity at phase end

Swimlanes

Swimlanes group initiatives within a phase by domain:

{
  "swimlanes": [
    {
      "id": "sw-platform",
      "name": "Platform Initiatives",
      "domain": "operations",
      "initiativeIds": ["init-monitoring", "init-ci-cd"]
    }
  ]
}

Example Phase

{
  "id": "phase-q1-2026",
  "name": "Q1 2026",
  "quarter": "Q1",
  "year": 2026,
  "startDate": "2026-01-01",
  "endDate": "2026-03-31",
  "status": "in_progress",
  "goalTargets": [
    {
      "goalId": "goal-reliability",
      "enterLevel": 2,
      "exitLevel": 3
    },
    {
      "goalId": "goal-velocity",
      "enterLevel": 2,
      "exitLevel": 3
    }
  ],
  "swimlanes": [
    {
      "id": "sw-platform",
      "name": "Platform Initiatives",
      "domain": "operations",
      "initiativeIds": ["init-monitoring", "init-ci-cd"]
    }
  ]
}

Phase Metrics

Phase metrics show the performance of metrics tied to phase initiatives:

{
  "metricId": "ops-availability",
  "metricName": "Service Availability",
  "current": 99.95,
  "target": 99.99,
  "unit": "%",
  "meetsSLO": true
}

Initiatives

Initiatives are projects linked to phases and goals:

{
  "id": "init-monitoring",
  "name": "Observability Platform",
  "description": "Deploy comprehensive monitoring and alerting",
  "status": "in_progress",
  "priority": 1,
  "owner": "SRE Team",
  "goalIds": ["goal-reliability"],
  "phaseId": "phase-q1-2026",
  "metricIds": ["ops-availability", "ops-mttr"],
  "devCompletionPercent": 90,
  "deploymentStatus": {
    "status": "in_progress",
    "totalCustomers": 50,
    "deployedCustomers": 45,
    "adoptionPercent": 90
  }
}

Initiative Statuses

Status	Description
planned	Not yet started
in_progress	Currently being worked on
completed	Fully deployed
blocked	Blocked by dependencies
cancelled	No longer planned

CLI Commands

# List all phases
prism phase list document.json

# Show phase details
prism phase show phase-q1-2026 document.json

# Show phase metrics
prism phase metrics phase-q1-2026 document.json

# Show phase progress
prism phase progress phase-q1-2026 document.json

Example Output

Phase: Q1 2026 (in_progress)
Period: 2026-01-01 to 2026-03-31

Goal Targets:
  goal-reliability: Level 2 → Level 3
  goal-velocity: Level 2 → Level 3

Platform Initiatives:
  - init-monitoring: Observability Platform [in_progress] (90% dev, 90% deployed)
  - init-ci-cd: CI/CD Pipeline Enhancement [completed] (100% deployed)

Metrics:
  ✓ ops-availability: 99.95% (target: >=99.9%)
  ✓ ops-deploy-frequency: 5/day (target: >=5/day)

Roadmap View

The roadmap combines all phases to show the journey:

prism roadmap progress document.json