4.1. Introduction to the Lifecycle
💡 First Principle: The lifecycle exists to give everyone a shared map of where a product is in its life — but its defining feature is that the map is navigated iteratively, because real products are continuously discovered, redesigned, and improved rather than built once and left alone.
Why care: organizations that treat product work as a one-way pipeline (design it, build it, ship it, forget it) produce brittle services that decay. The lifecycle's iterative framing is what keeps products alive and improving. The mental model is best shown as a connected flow where any activity can lead to any other.
⚠️ Common Misconception: That the eight activities run in fixed sequence from discover to support. They don't — they're iterative and often concurrent, the single most-tested point in this phase.
