SquadFlow

Factories run your business. Projects change it.

An open framework for administering companies that balances continuous execution and temporary initiatives.
One ontology, nine entities, three layers — and a formal data model built for a future proprietary system.

Important

The whole point in one sentence: Continuous work and change work are different disciplines, and most frameworks pretend they aren't. SquadFlow keeps them apart — and names the moment a successful change becomes a routine.

Is SquadFlow for you?

✅ Yes, if you are…	❌ No, if you are…
A founder, COO, or chief of staff at a 10–200 person company.	A team of 5. Just talk to each other.
Running more than one brand, product line, or business unit.	A single Scrum team shipping one product — keep Scrum.
Tired of duct-taping Scrum + Kanban + OKRs + "process" together.	Already 500+ people deep in SAFe — switching costs are real.
Willing to pay the small tax of naming things explicitly.	Allergic to ontology.
Planning to eventually build software on top of your operating model.	Looking for a certification track. None here.

Contents

1. Why SquadFlow
2. The five principles
3. The nine entities
4. Lifecycles at a glance
5. Cadence stack
6. Roles
7. Governance
8. Quickstart
9. How SquadFlow compares
10. Data model
11. Who uses it
12. Ready to try it?
13. Full reference
14. Contributing & license

Why SquadFlow

Running a company is two different jobs.

One is keeping the business alive — closing deals every week, shipping content, answering support, processing payroll. The work never stops. The goal is rhythm.

The other is changing the business — launching a product, migrating a system, entering a new market. The work has a beginning and an end. The goal is delivery.

Take a sales pipeline. Prospect → Qualified → Proposal → Won. It never empties. Next week there will be new prospects, whether you planned for them or not. This is a Factory. Forcing it into two-week sprints is a category error.

Now take "migrate our billing system from a custom codebase to Stripe". It has a scope, a start, and a finish. When it's done, it's done — Stripe runs itself. This is a Project. It would be absurd to hand it to the sales team's kanban.

Most frameworks pick one side and pretend the other is a special case. Scrum optimizes change into sprints. Kanban optimizes flow and calls everything a ticket. SAFe tries to do both and collapses under its own weight. SquadFlow keeps them distinct from day one — in the lifecycles, in the data schemas, in the governance rules.

Tip

The trick most frameworks miss: when a Project succeeds and produces something that must be operated forever (a partner portal, a new hiring pipeline, a content channel), SquadFlow has a dedicated state for that transition — absorbed. The Project closes; a new Factory is born. No work becomes invisible. No ownership evaporates.

If this framing clicks for you, read on. If it doesn't, no framework will fix the problem — the issue is somewhere else.

The five principles

1. Factories run your business. Projects change it. A Factory is permanent; a Project has a start, a scope, and an end.
2. Every entity has a single owner. Never a committee. If no one is personally accountable, the thing drifts — that's a physics law, not an opinion.
3. States are explicit. "Done" is not a state. "In progress" is not a state. A state is one of a short, finite list, with documented entry and exit conditions. Ambiguity about status is the leading cause of stalled work, and stalled work is silent.
4. Strategy and execution share one model. OKRs are first-class citizens in the same graph as Factories, Projects, and Squads — not a separate tool maintained by a separate team.
5. Open by default. CC-BY-SA 4.0. Adapt, translate, build on it. Credit the origin. Keep derivatives open.

Full rationale: MANIFESTO.md.

The nine entities

SquadFlow's ontology has nine first-class entities in four layers. No more, no less.

🌍 Context — where work happens

• 🏢 Company — A legal entity (LLC/Ltda/Corp) that signs contracts and pays taxes. Example: Guardsi Tecnologia LTDA.
• 🆔 Brand — A commercial identity owned by a Company. Example: Solyd, Caveiratech — both carried by the same Company.

🎯 Strategy — why work happens

• 🎯 OKR — Objective and Key Results for a period, scored at close. Example: "Become the preferred billing platform for LATAM SaaS" with 2–4 measurable KRs.

⚙️ Execution — how work happens

• 🏭 Factory — Continuous production. Example: B2B Sales Factory with stages Prospect → Qualified → Proposal Sent → In Negotiation → Won.
• 🚀 Project — Temporary initiative. Example: Billing Migration to Stripe — starts Feb, ends May, closes with delivered.
• ⚔️ Squad — Cross-functional team. Example: Platform Squad of 6 (3 engineers, 1 designer, 1 PM, 1 Lead) running one Factory + one Project.
• ✅ Task — Atomic unit of work. Example: "Write the Stripe connector module", assigned to Ana, blocked on prod access, due May 10.

🏀 People and Knowledge — who and what persists

• 🏀 Player — The individual. Example: Ana joins as candidate, becomes active on day 1, promoted to Squad Lead six months later.
• 📄 Document — Recorded knowledge. Example: Sales Factory Operating Manual, owned by the Factory Manager, flagged outdated if unreviewed for 6 months.

Core relationships

• A Company owns many Brands, employs Players, runs Factories, and scopes OKRs and Projects.
• A Brand can scope its own OKRs, Projects, and Factories.
• A Squad is responsible for running Factories and executing Projects. It can also have squad-level OKRs.
• Every Task belongs to exactly one Factory, Project, or Squad, assigned to exactly one Player.
• OKRs are contributed to by Factories, Projects, and Squads (many-to-many).
• A successful Project producing continuous output is absorbed into a new Factory at close.
• Documents attach to any entity for knowledge persistence.

Full schema with cardinalities: docs/data-model/er-diagram.svg.

Lifecycles at a glance

Every entity has a finite state machine. Full diagrams in docs/lifecycles/; summary below.

Entity	States	Key transition
Company	active → archived	Archived only on legal dissolution.
Brand	active → archived	Archived when sunset in the market.
OKR	draft → active → in_review → closed	At close: achieved (score ≥ 0.7), partially_met, or missed.
Factory	proposed → active ⇄ paused → retired	Retirement requires Steward + Manager approval.
Project	idea → scoping → backlog → active → delivery → closed	Close reason: delivered, canceled, or absorbed into a new Factory.
Squad	forming → active ⇄ on_hold → dissolving → dissolved	Dissolution hands off all Factories/Projects explicitly.
Task	todo → in_progress ⇄ blocked → done	Done reason: completed or canceled.
Player	candidate → active ⇄ on_leave → offboarded	Offboarding reassigns Tasks and drops Squad membership; record preserved.
Document	draft → in_review → published ⇄ outdated → archived	outdated is a first-class flag — stale docs are marked, not hidden.

Note

The absorbed transition is the most important motion in SquadFlow. When a successful Project has to be operated continuously, it becomes a new Factory — with a new Manager, a new kanban, and a decision-log entry recording why.

Cadence stack

Frequency	Ceremony	Scope	Duration	Convened by
Daily	Debriefing	all Players	≤ 15 min	Squad Lead
Weekly	Squad Sync	per Squad	~30 min	Squad Lead
Weekly	Factory Review	per Factory	~30 min	Factory Manager
Monthly	Portfolio Review	Stewards + Leads	~60 min	Org Steward
Quarterly	OKR Setting / Review	org-wide	~90 min per session	OKR Sponsors
Quarterly	Strategic Cadence	Stewards	~120 min	Org Steward
Yearly	Annual Planning + OKRs	org-wide	full day	Org Steward

Plus ad-hoc ceremonies triggered by lifecycle transitions (Project Kickoff, Project Closing, Squad Formation, Squad Dissolution, Factory Retirement).

Tip

Don't run all of these on day one. A 20-person company survives fine on daily Debriefing + weekly Squad Sync + quarterly OKR Review. Add more when you feel the gap — not because the framework says so.

Detail: docs/processes/cadences.md · docs/processes/ceremonies.md.

Roles

Roles are named responsibilities held by Players. One Player can hold several Roles. Roles are not job titles, not compensation tiers.

Role	Scope	Responsibility
Player	individual	Executes Tasks; participates in Squad ceremonies.
Squad Lead	1 Squad	Coordinates the Squad; ensures cadence runs.
Factory Manager	1 Factory	Owns the kanban; runs weekly Review; maintains operating manual.
Project Owner	1 Project	Accountable for delivery; decides close reason.
OKR Sponsor	N OKRs	Shapes, defends, and scores the OKR.
Org Steward	1 Company or Brand	Approves state transitions; does not micromanage.

Detail: docs/processes/roles.md.

Governance

Four principles:

1. Every entity has a single owner — never a committee.
2. Approvals are logged — sensitive transitions create a decision-log entry.
3. Stewards do not micromanage — they approve state transitions, not Tasks.
4. Roles are not titles — named responsibilities, not compensation tiers.

Who approves what (summary):

Action	Approver(s)
Create / archive Company, Brand	Org Steward
Create Factory	Org Steward
Retire Factory	Org Steward + Factory Manager
Create Project	Project Owner (+ OKR Sponsor if OKR-linked)
Cancel Project	Project Owner + Org Steward
Absorb Project → Factory	Project Owner + Org Steward
Form / dissolve Squad	Squad Lead + Org Steward
Define / close OKR	OKR Sponsor
Offboard Player	HR + Org Steward
Publish Document	Owner (after review)
Assign / cancel Task	Squad Lead, Factory Manager, or Project Owner

Full RACI matrix and decision-log pattern: docs/processes/governance.md.

Quickstart

1. Create one Company and one Brand. Even a single-brand startup creates both — they diverge the day you grow.
2. Identify your Factories and your Projects. A sales pipeline is a Factory. Building a new feature is a Project. If it never ends, it's a Factory. If it has a due date, it's a Project.
3. Pick 1–3 OKRs for the quarter. Objective + 2–4 measurable Key Results. Assign a Sponsor to each. Fewer than 1 means you're coasting; more than 3 means nothing is a priority.
4. Form your Squads. Cross-functional, 2+ Players, one Squad Lead. Assign Factories and Projects.
5. Set your cadence. Daily Debriefing, weekly Squad Sync, weekly Factory Review, quarterly OKR Setting/Review. Everything else is optional at first.

Tip

Hit a question not obviously answered? Three places to look:

• What is this thing? → docs/ontology/
• What state can it be in? → docs/lifecycles/
• Who approves it? → docs/processes/governance.md

Step-by-step walkthrough: docs/getting-started.md. Downloadable Notion template ships with v1.0 in templates/notion/.

How SquadFlow compares

Dimension	SquadFlow	Scrum	Shape Up	SAFe	OKRs alone
Scope	whole org	single team	product team	enterprise	strategy only
Continuous ops	Factory (first-class)	not native	not modeled	peripheral	invisible
Temporary initiatives	Project (first-class)	sprints	bets	epics	—
Strategy link	OKR native, relational	external	qualitative	epics↔OKRs	it is OKRs
Multi-brand	yes	no	no	enterprise-scale	no
Data model	JSON Schemas	informal	informal	informal	informal
License	CC-BY-SA 4.0	Attribution-ShareAlike	CC-BY-NC-ND	proprietary	public domain
Target size	10–200	5–15 team	5–30	500+	any

Detailed per-framework comparisons: docs/comparisons/.

When to pick something else, honestly:

• Team of 5 → no framework. Frameworks are for when communication starts breaking. You're not there yet.
• Single Scrum team, one product → Scrum. Seriously, stop adding things.
• Enterprise, 500+ engineers, already committed to SAFe → stay. Switching isn't free. SquadFlow doesn't scale to your shape anyway.
• Looking for certifications and a coach network → SAFe or Scrum.org. SquadFlow offers neither and doesn't plan to.

Data model

SquadFlow ships with a formal data model: nine JSON Schemas (draft 2020-12), an ER diagram, and naming conventions. Validated in CI; generate idiomatic clients without manual edits.

# TypeScript
npx json-schema-to-typescript docs/data-model/schemas/project.schema.json

# Python (Pydantic)
datamodel-codegen --input docs/data-model/schemas/project.schema.json \
  --output project.py --input-file-type jsonschema

Source: docs/data-model/ — conventions, ER diagram, 9 schemas, test fixtures.

Note

Most management frameworks ship as prose. SquadFlow ships as prose and a machine-readable contract. That's deliberate — we expect someone to build proprietary software on top of this, and we'd rather they start from valid schemas than from paraphrased opinions.

Who uses it

1 Group · 2 Companies · 5 Brands · used daily since 2024

Grupo Solyd — the framework was born here, stress-tested here, and is the reason every decision in v1.0 is opinionated the way it is.

• Guardsi — B2B cybersecurity services and education.
• Mindz — SaaS platforms for infoproduct businesses.
• Solyd — cybersecurity education (LATAM's largest).
• Caveiratech — content and media.
• Solyd Hunter — talent program.

A detailed case study ships in examples/multi-brand-group.md with v1.0.

Note

Running SquadFlow in your own organization? Open an Issue or PR to add yourself here. Credibility compounds.

Ready to try it?

⭐ Star the repo Follow along as v1.0 ships

📥 Download Notion template Import, populate, you're running it (v1.0)

📖 Read the Manifesto The whole thing in 400 words

Full reference

For deeper reading — especially if you are implementing the framework as software or adopting it formally:

Area	What's there
Manifesto	The five principles, longer form.
Glossary	Canonical definitions of every term.
Ontology	One file per entity — attributes, relations, examples, antipatterns.
Lifecycles	State machines per entity — diagrams, transitions, behavior.
Processes	Roles, cadences, ceremonies, governance — in depth.
Data model	JSON Schemas, ER diagram, code-generation guidance.
Comparisons	SquadFlow vs. Scrum / Shape Up / SAFe / OKRs (detailed).
Getting started	Step-by-step 15-minute walkthrough.
Notion template	Importable starter workspace (ships with v1.0).
Examples	Worked cases — fictional SaaS, Grupo Solyd.

Contributing & license

Contributions, translations, and adaptations are welcome.

Channel	For
Issues	Bugs, typos, unclear wording, feature requests.
Discussions	Open questions, design debates, showcases.
Pull requests	Fixes, refinements, translations. See CONTRIBUTING.md.
Security advisories	Sensitive disclosures — see SECURITY.md.

Before contributing, read CONTRIBUTING.md and CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md.

License: CC-BY-SA 4.0. You may share, adapt, and build commercial products on top — as long as you credit the origin and keep your derivatives under the same license. Attributions should point to https://github.com/guilhermej/squadflow-framework.

Acknowledgments

SquadFlow stands on the shoulders of frameworks that came before:

• Andy Grove and John Doerr for the OKR discipline.
• Basecamp / Ryan Singer for Shape Up and the shaping/betting discipline borrowed in the scoping state of Projects.
• Spotify for the term Squad (used here with a narrower meaning — and yes, we know Spotify itself doesn't use the "Spotify Model" anymore).
• Scrum.org for the Scrum Guide, whose editorial discipline inspired this documentation's tone.

The framework was born inside Grupo Solyd and is tested daily against its reality. If it breaks there, it gets fixed here.

---

Guilherme Junqueira Soares CEO — Solyd Research guilherme[at]solyd[.]com[.]br · @guilhermej

_{SquadFlow is a young framework. v1.0 is the first public release; the ontology may evolve with feedback.
Built with care in Brazil · Changelog · © 2026 Guilherme Junqueira Soares · CC-BY-SA 4.0}