Change Management Policy

Comprehensive policy for managing feature requests, requirements, and development lifecycle at Wealthy

Change Management Policy

This document outlines the comprehensive change management process at Wealthy, from initial partner feedback and business requirements to development implementation and delivery.

Overview

The Wealthy change management process ensures that all feature requests, enhancements, and business requirements are properly evaluated, documented, planned, and implemented with appropriate stakeholder involvement and tracking.

Process Flow

flowchart TD
    A[Partner Feedback/Business Need] --> B[Business Team Analysis]
    B --> C[Requirement Shared with Product Manager]
    C --> D[PM Collaborates with CEO/CTO]
    D --> E[Product Manager Creates Requirement Document]
    E --> F{Design Requirements?}
    F -->|Yes| G[Design Team Collaboration]
    G --> H[Figma Designs Created]
    H --> I[Design Review & Approval]
    I --> J[Figma Links Added to Documents]
    J --> K[Stakeholder Review & Approval]
    F -->|No| K[Stakeholder Review & Approval]
    K --> L[Planning Phase - Resource Allocation]
    L --> M[Planning Frozen - Document Finalized]
    M --> N[Development Phase Begins]
    N --> O[PM Creates Tasks in Plane with Figma Links]
    O --> P[Weekly Sprint Planning]
    P --> Q[Sprint Execution & Tracking]
    Q --> R[Sprint Review & Demo]
    R --> S{Sprint Complete?}
    S -->|No| P
    S -->|Yes| T[Feature Testing & QA]
    T --> U[Deployment & Release]
    U --> V[Partner/Stakeholder Feedback]
    V --> W[Post-Implementation Review]

Stage 1: Requirement Initiation

1.1 Feedback Sources

  • Partner Feedback: Direct feedback from financial advisors and distribution partners
  • Business Team Analysis: Internal business operations identifying improvement opportunities
  • Customer Support: Issues and feature requests from customer interactions
  • Compliance Requirements: Regulatory changes requiring system updates
  • Market Analysis: Competitive analysis and market opportunity identification

1.2 Initial Assessment

Responsible: Business Team (Operations/Support/Tech)

Activities:

  • Collect and categorize feedback
  • Perform initial impact assessment
  • Identify affected systems and stakeholders
  • Estimate business value and urgency
  • Document preliminary requirement scope

Deliverables:

  • Initial requirement summary
  • Business impact assessment
  • Stakeholder identification

Stage 2: Requirement Documentation

2.1 Product Manager Review

Responsible: Product Manager with CEO/CTO

Activities:

  • Analyze business requirement against product strategy
  • CEO/CTO Collaboration: Discuss business alignment, technical feasibility, and architectural implications
  • Evaluate technical feasibility with engineering teams
  • Assess resource requirements and timeline
  • Identify dependencies and risks
  • Prioritize against existing roadmap

2.2 Design Collaboration (If Required)

Responsible: Product Manager with Design Team

For features requiring UI/UX changes:

  • Design Team Consultation: Product Manager collaborates with Design Team to understand UI/UX requirements
  • Figma Design Creation: Design Team creates wireframes, mockups, and prototypes in Figma
  • Design Review: Stakeholder review of design concepts and user experience flows
  • Design System Alignment: Ensure consistency with existing design system and brand guidelines

2.3 Requirement Document Creation

Responsible: Product Manager

Document Contents:

  1. Executive Summary

    • Business need and justification
    • Expected outcomes and success metrics
    • High-level timeline and resource requirements

  2. Detailed Requirements

    • Functional requirements with acceptance criteria
    • Non-functional requirements (performance, security, compliance)
    • User stories and use cases
    • Technical specifications and constraints

  3. Design Requirements (If Applicable)

    • Figma Links: Direct links to design mockups, wireframes, and prototypes
    • Design System Components: References to existing or new design system elements
    • User Experience Flows: Detailed UX workflows and interaction patterns
    • Responsive Design: Mobile, tablet, and desktop design considerations

  4. Implementation Plan

    • High-level architecture and design approach
    • Development phases and milestones
    • Resource allocation and team assignments
    • Risk assessment and mitigation strategies

  5. Testing Strategy

    • Quality assurance approach
    • User acceptance testing plan
    • Performance and security testing requirements
    • Rollback procedures

  6. Deployment Plan

    • Rollout strategy (phased vs full deployment)
    • Monitoring and success metrics
    • Communication plan for stakeholders
    • Training and documentation requirements

Stage 3: Review and Approval

3.1 Stakeholder Review

Participants:

  • Product Manager (Owner)
  • CTO (Technical Review)
  • Business Team (Business Validation)
  • Compliance Team (Regulatory Review)
  • Finance Team (Budget Approval) - for higher budget only

Review Criteria:

  • Alignment with business objectives
  • Technical feasibility and architecture compliance
  • Resource availability and budget constraints
  • Risk assessment and mitigation adequacy
  • Compliance and regulatory adherence

3.2 Approval Process

  1. Document Distribution: Requirement document shared with all stakeholders
  2. Review Period: 5 business days for stakeholder review and feedback
  3. Review Meeting: Stakeholder meeting to discuss feedback and concerns
  4. Document Revision: Product Manager updates document based on feedback
  5. Final Approval: Formal approval from all stakeholders required

Approval Authorities:

  • Technical Changes: CTO approval required
  • Business Process Changes: Operations Manager approval required
  • Budget Impact: Finance Team approval required for higher budgets
  • Compliance Impact: Compliance approval required

Stage 4: Planning and Resource Allocation

4.1 Development Planning

Responsible: Product Manager with CEO/CTO

Activities:

  • Break down requirements into development tasks
  • Estimate effort and timeline for each task
  • Identify team assignments and skill requirements
  • Plan integration points and dependencies
  • Define sprint structure and milestones

4.2 Resource Allocation

  • Team Assignment: Assign appropriate engineering teams (Backend, Frontend, Mobile, DevOps)
  • Capacity Planning: Ensure team availability and workload balance
  • External Dependencies: Identify third-party integrations or vendor requirements
  • Infrastructure Requirements: Plan for additional infrastructure or tool needs

4.3 Planning Freeze

Once planning is complete and approved:

  • Document Finalization: Requirement document marked as final
  • Baseline Establishment: Development scope and timeline locked
  • Change Control: Any changes require formal change request process
  • Communication: Development teams and stakeholders notified of approved plan

Stage 5: Development Implementation

5.1 Task Management in Plane

Responsible: Product Manager with Engineering Teams

Wealthy uses two distinct Plane projects for comprehensive tracking:

Roadmap Project (Product Manager)

  • Purpose: High-level feature and requirement tracking
  • Audience: Product Manager, stakeholders, business teams
  • Content: Top-level features, business requirements, milestones
  • Visibility: Strategic overview of product development progress

Engineering Board (Development Teams)

  • Purpose: Individual development task tracking and execution
  • Audience: Engineering teams, CTO, Product Manager
  • Content: Technical tasks, bugs, code reviews, deployments
  • Visibility: Detailed development work and sprint progress

Task Creation Process

  1. Product Manager creates high-level feature in Roadmap Project
  2. PM discusses with CEO/CTO to validate business alignment, technical approach and resource requirements
  3. PM discusses with engineering teams to understand detailed technical scope
  4. Design Integration (If Required):
    • PM collaborates with Design Team for UI/UX requirements
    • Figma links added to both Roadmap Project feature and requirement document
    • Design mockups and prototypes referenced in technical discussions
  5. Engineering teams break down feature into individual tasks in Engineering Board
  6. Figma Integration: Engineering Board tasks include Figma design links for UI/UX reference
  7. All engineering tasks are linked to the corresponding Roadmap feature
  8. Progress tracking: Roadmap shows aggregated progress from linked engineering tasks

5.2 Sprint Planning Process

Weekly Sprint Cycle

Sprint Duration: 1 week

Sprint Planning Meeting (Every Monday)

  • Participants: Product Manager, Engineering Teams, QA
  • Duration: 2 hours maximum
  • Agenda:
    • Review previous sprint accomplishments from Engineering Board
    • Assess current sprint progress and blockers
    • Plan upcoming sprint tasks and priorities in Engineering Board
    • Update Roadmap Project with feature progress
    • Identify dependencies and resource needs

Sprint Execution

  • Daily Coordination: Via Slack and ad-hoc meetings as needed
  • Task Updates: Real-time updates in Engineering Board
  • Feature Progress: Automatic rollup to Roadmap Project via task linking
  • Blocker Escalation: Immediate escalation to Product Manager for resolution
  • Visibility: Stakeholders can click on Roadmap features to see detailed Engineering Board progress

Sprint Review

  • Demo Preparation: Completed features from Engineering Board prepared for stakeholder demo
  • Progress Assessment: Sprint completion rate tracked in Engineering Board
  • Roadmap Update: Feature completion status updated in Roadmap Project
  • Stakeholder Communication: Progress communicated via Roadmap Project visibility
  • Issue Resolution: Outstanding Engineering Board issues prioritized for next sprint

Stage 6: Quality Assurance and Testing

6.1 Development Testing

  • Unit Testing: Individual component testing by developers
  • Integration Testing: System integration and API testing
  • Code Review: Peer review process for all code changes

6.2 Quality Assurance Testing

  • Functional Testing: Feature functionality validation
  • User Acceptance Testing: Business stakeholder validation
  • Performance Testing: System performance and scalability testing
  • Regression Testing: Ensure existing functionality remains intact

6.3 Compliance Testing

  • Regulatory Compliance: Compliance team validation for regulatory requirements
  • Security Compliance: Security policy and procedure validation
  • Data Privacy: Data handling and privacy requirement validation

Stage 7: Deployment and Release

7.1 Deployment Process

  • Dev Deployment: Deploy to dev environment for final testing
  • Production Deployment: Deploy to production environment using established CI/CD pipeline
  • Monitoring: Real-time monitoring of system performance and error rates
  • Rollback Plan: Immediate rollback capability in case of issues

7.2 Release Communication

  • Internal Communication: Notify all internal teams of release completion
  • Partner Communication: Inform partners of new features and changes
  • Customer Communication: Update customers on new functionality
  • Documentation: Update user documentation and help resources

Stage 8: Post-Implementation Review

8.1 Success Metrics Evaluation

  • Business Metrics: Measure achievement of business objectives
  • Technical Metrics: Assess system performance and reliability
  • User Adoption: Monitor feature usage and user feedback
  • Partner Satisfaction: Collect partner feedback on new functionality

8.2 Lessons Learned

  • Process Review: Evaluate effectiveness of development process
  • Team Retrospective: Identify areas for process improvement
  • Documentation Update: Update change management procedures based on learnings
  • Best Practice Sharing: Share successful approaches across teams

Change Request Process

Emergency Changes

For urgent business or compliance requirements:

  1. Escalation: Direct escalation to Product Manager and CTO
  2. Expedited Review: 24-hour stakeholder review cycle
  3. Risk Assessment: Comprehensive risk evaluation for fast-track approval
  4. Resource Reallocation: Temporary resource reallocation from other projects

Scope Changes

For changes to approved requirements:

  1. Change Request Form: Formal documentation of proposed changes
  2. Impact Assessment: Analysis of schedule, resource, and budget impact
  3. Stakeholder Approval: Re-approval from affected stakeholders
  4. Timeline Adjustment: Update project timeline and milestones

Roles and Responsibilities

Product Manager

  • Owns the entire change management process
  • Creates and maintains requirement documents
  • Manages Plane ticket system and sprint planning
  • Coordinates between business and technical teams
  • Reports progress to stakeholders

Business Team

  • Identifies business needs and partner feedback
  • Provides business validation and acceptance criteria
  • Participates in requirement review and approval
  • Validates final implementation against business needs

CTO

  • Provides technical feasibility assessment
  • Collaborates with Product Manager on feature scope and planning
  • Approves technical architecture and approach
  • Ensures resource allocation for development teams
  • Oversees development quality and standards

Engineering Teams

  • Provides effort estimates and technical input
  • Implements approved requirements according to specifications
  • Participates in sprint planning and execution
  • Ensures code quality and testing standards

Compliance Team

  • Reviews requirements for regulatory compliance
  • Validates implementation against compliance standards
  • Provides compliance testing and approval
  • Updates compliance documentation as needed

Tools and Systems

Primary Tools

  • Plane Roadmap Project: High-level feature tracking and stakeholder visibility
  • Plane Engineering Board: Individual development task management and sprint tracking
  • Figma: Design mockups, wireframes, and prototypes (linked in both Plane projects)
  • Slack: Primary communication platform for coordination
  • Git: Version control and code review system
  • Documentation: Google Doc / Drop Box Paper / docs.wealthy.systems

Reporting and Metrics

  • Roadmap Progress: High-level feature completion and milestone tracking
  • Engineering Board Reports: Weekly sprint progress and task completion metrics
  • Linked Task Visibility: Click-through from Roadmap features to detailed Engineering Board progress
  • Created vs Resolved: Team productivity and planning accuracy
  • Quality Metrics: Bug rates, and performance indicators

Governance and Compliance

  • All requirement documents must be stored in centralized documentation system
  • Change history and approval trail must be maintained
  • Regular audit of change management process compliance
  • Monthly review of change management process adherence
  • Annual compliance audit with external validation
  • Regular risk assessment and mitigation plan updates
  • Escalation procedures for high-risk changes

This document is reviewed monthly and updated as needed to reflect process improvements and organizational changes.

Last modified November 11, 2025: RCA added for SIP failure (16439aa)