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Iteration Zero Stakeholder Interview Document

Purpose​

This document serves as a structured guide to interview business and technical stakeholders. The gathered information will be combined with the Hive Framework defaults to create an Iteration Zero technical specification.

Section 1: Financial and Budgetary Constraints​

  • What is the overall project budget?
  • Are there limitations on cloud services or LLM usage due to cost?
  • How many technical resources (developers, AI agents) can be allocated?
  • What trade-offs need to be made between cost and performance?
  • Are there budget constraints for external services (e.g., SaaS tools, monitoring, CI/CD)?

Section 2: Business Objectives and Success Criteria​

  • What are the primary goals of the project?
  • What metrics will be used to measure success?
  • Are there specific deadlines or milestones that must be met?
  • How will user feedback be gathered and incorporated?

Section 3: Risks and Blockers​

  • Are there known technical or business challenges?

  • Are there dependencies on third-party services or vendors?

  • What are the fallback strategies in case of unexpected obstacles?

  • What scalability challenges might arise as the system grows?

  • How will technical debt be managed to prevent long-term inefficiencies?

  • Are there known technical or business challenges?

  • Are there dependencies on third-party services or vendors?

  • What are the fallback strategies in case of unexpected obstacles?

Section 4: Iteration Cycle Management​

  • What is the expected cadence for releases?
  • How frequently will retrospectives be conducted?
  • How will feedback loops be structured?

Section 5: Stakeholders and Roles​

  • Who is the project sponsor or decision-maker?
  • Who are the primary users, and how are their needs prioritized?
  • Who is responsible for defining requirements and approving changes?

Section 6: Communication and Documentation​

  • What tools will be used for internal communication (Slack, Teams, etc.)?
  • What level of documentation is required?
  • How will knowledge sharing be managed across the team?

Section 7: Application Type​

  • What type of application is being built?

    • Web application
    • Mobile application
    • API service
    • Hybrid or other

  • Will this application start as one type and later expand to others? If so, what is the roadmap for expansion?

  • Are there specific integrations or dependencies that would impact future expansion?

  • How flexible does the architecture need to be to accommodate future application types?

  • Will different application types require different authentication or security models?

Section 8: Technical Stack Decisions​

  • What programming languages will be used?
  • What frameworks are preferred (e.g., Phoenix, Rails, React, Next.js, etc.)?
  • Will the project be hosted on the cloud or on-premises?
  • What database solution will be used (PostgreSQL, SQLite, etc.)?
  • Will containerization be used (Docker, Kubernetes, etc.)?
  • What CI/CD pipeline setup is required?
  • What architectural approach will be followed (Monolith, Microservices, etc.)?
  • Will frontend and backend be separated or integrated?
  • Does the system need to support multi-tenancy?
  • What scalability model will be adopted (horizontal vs. vertical scaling)?

Section 9: Infrastructure Decisions​

  • What hosting provider will be used (AWS, Digital Ocean, Azure, etc.)?

  • What deployment strategy will be followed (serverless, Kubernetes, traditional VM-based hosting)?

  • How will data storage be handled (relational vs. NoSQL solutions)?

  • What logging and monitoring tools will be used (Datadog, Prometheus, etc.)?

  • What cost optimization strategies will be implemented?

  • What disaster recovery planning measures will be in place?

Section 10: Key Architectural Decision Records (ADRs)​

  • Choice of programming language and framework
  • API standards and structure (REST vs. GraphQL, etc.)
  • Frontend-backend communication method
  • Infrastructure and deployment model
  • Security and authentication policies

Section 11: Development and Collaboration Practices​

  • What code repository will be used (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket)?
  • What branching strategy will be followed (GitFlow, trunk-based development, etc.)?
  • What testing strategies are required (unit, integration, end-to-end testing)?
  • What are the documentation requirements?
  • How will issue tracking and backlog management be handled (JIRA, Asana, Trello)?

Section 12: Team Coordination​

  • What work tracking tools will be used (Trello, Asana, JIRA)?
  • Where will source code be stored (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket)?
  • Is time tracking required for human participants?
  • What is the preferred meeting format (in-person, Zoom, Google Meet, hybrid)?
  • What is the default time zone for coordination?
  • Who is responsible for accepting work?

Section 13: Security and Compliance Considerations​

  • What encryption standards will be used for data at rest and in transit?

  • What authentication and authorization approach will be implemented (OAuth, JWT, etc.)?

  • What regulatory compliance requirements exist (GDPR, HIPAA, etc.)?

  • How will role-based access control (RBAC) be implemented?

  • What incident response procedures will be in place?

  • How will security audits be conducted?