Method · Sistema Órbita
I design systems, I don't sell tools. This is how I do it.
Órbita isn't a new methodology: it's a reasoned adaptation of recognized standards, trimmed to the real size of the work.
The thesis
«Documentation is written during execution; results are measured with instruments, not memory.»
Life cycle
Five phases, three gates
The phases are the backbone shared by every project. A gate isn't a meeting: it's a checklist run against the evidence, with the decision recorded. What doesn't pass the checklist doesn't move forward.
Framing
Who asks, what it solves and what's out of scope.
Discovery
The current process and its baseline.
Design
The future process and its decisions.
Build
The system, instrumented to measure.
Adoption
Pilot, retiring the old way and handover.
- C1 · Kick-off
- Go · Conditional go · Postpone · Drop
- C2 · Build
- Go · Conditional go · Redesign · Drop
- C3 · Close
- Closed · Closed with debt · Reopen
Five routes
Not every project is approached the same way
Size tells you how much documentation a project needs; it doesn't tell you what to do in each phase. So before starting, the method identifies the nature of the work.
Process digitization
There's a paper form, an Excel file or an email someone fills in today. It's understood, redesigned and replaced.
Client engagement
Someone external pays. Scope becomes an agreement and acceptance becomes their call.
Own system
Nobody asks for it or pays for it. The method exists to force closure, with a public date.
Academic
An institution sets the date and the criteria. You plan backwards and translate the rubric.
Exploration
The outcome is learning. Concluding “it doesn't work” also counts as finishing.
Each route also gets an intensity —light, standard or full— that calibrates how much documentation it requires.
Provenance
Professional judgment, not an invented methodology
Every piece comes from a recognized standard. One piece was taken from each source and the rest was left out: no committees, no mandatory processes that don't apply, no statistics the data volume doesn't justify.
Stage-Gate
Cooper
Phases separated by formal decision points, with the option to go, hold or drop.
ISO 21502:2020
Project management
Life-cycle gates, transition into operations and benefits measured after closing.
BPM life cycle
Dumas et al.
Discover and analyze the process before redesigning it: as-is comes before to-be.
DMAIC
Lean Six Sigma
Define and measure before improving: the baseline and the measurement.
ADKAR
Prosci
Adoption one person at a time: awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement.
Principles
Three non-negotiable rules
Process first, software second
Digitizing a process nobody has mapped hard-codes a practice nobody defined.
BPM life cycle
Built is not adopted
The project ends when people use it, not when it works.
ADKAR
Measure the before, or state why it wasn't measured
No figure is claimed without an instrument. When there's no data, I write down that it wasn't measured and why, never an estimate dressed up as a measurement.
DMAIC · PMI Benefits Realization
And the other five
- No sponsor, no project.
- Out-of-scope is written down.
- Every decision travels with the alternative it ruled out.
- Documentation is written during the work; the portfolio is generated, not drafted.
- The system measures itself.
In practice
Leaders App
At Darnel Group (Ajover), process first meant mapping the Standard Work and updating the procedures before writing the first screen: an AI agent built on outdated documentation spreads the error instead of fixing it.
This website
Its projects are generated from the portfolio records. A pending data point isn't published and a year the record doesn't confirm doesn't appear on the card.
Shall we apply the method to your operation?
We start with framing: what problem the system solves and what stays out.