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Glossary
What is shaping?
Turning a raw request into something decidable: the problem stated apart from the proposed solution, the intended outcome, what is known versus assumed versus unknown, and a likely owner.
Shaping is not specification — it produces a decision input, not a build plan. A shaped demand can still be declined, and that is the point: the work of understanding happens while the requester still has the context, and before anyone's time is promised.
Related terms
- Demand — A work request that has entered the delivery lifecycle — the unit a delivery governance system tracks from intake to decision.
- Clarification brief — A short artifact that separates what is known from what is assumed from what is still an open question, produced when a raw request is shaped into a demand.
- Demand management — The practice of deciding what happens to requested work — shaping raw requests into decidable demands, refusing or parking some on the record, and committing the rest against real capacity.
This definition comes from building DeliverySheet — it takes a vague work request to a clear delivery decision, so the shape, owner, capacity, dependencies and open questions are on the table before anyone commits people or a date.