WS 1 — Immersion & Validation

Duration	1 week
Objective	Build a shared understanding of Manulife's existing technology landscape, target state vision, business objectives and work completed to date
Focus	Rapid immersion and validation of existing materials
Deliverables	D1.1 · D1.2

Tasks

ID	Activity (SOW Schedule "A")	Output	Status
WS1-A1	Project kick-off — align on objectives, scope, approach, roles and responsibilities, key stakeholders, engagement governance	Kick-off record, stakeholder map, governance model	⚪
WS1-A2	Review and assess existing client-provided materials — current state technology assessment, architecture artifacts, technology inventories	Client resources — one page per artifact	🟡
WS1-A3	Assess the existing target state vision and architecture direction, including alignment to business objectives and technology strategy	Assessment feeding D1.1	🟡
WS1-A4	Identify architectural questions, ambiguities, dependencies, risks and decisions to be addressed during the engagement	Open questions register	🟡
WS1-A5	Align on objectives, success criteria and the decision-making process for developing and socializing the target state and roadmap	Agreed success criteria and decision forum	⚪

WS1-A2 — sub-tasks

ID	Artifact	Status
WS1-A2a	Unified customer architecture — strategy	🟢
WS1-A2b	The Architecture Decision — options comparison	🟢
WS1-A2c	GARB ADS (MVP Phase)	🟢
WS1-A2d	Segment architecture assessment	🟢
WS1-A2e	MVP Canada EA analysis — readiness review	🟢
WS1-A2f	Manulife Canada API landscape	🟢
WS1-A2g	UCX Canada experience map	🟢
WS1-A2i	API Mediation proposal — received 2026-09-16, outside the original seven	🟢
WS1-A2h	Confirm the input set is complete — nothing else outstanding from the client → Client requests	🟡

All eight have been read end to end and summarised with citations. WS1-A2 stays 🟡 until A2h closes — and A2h has now answered itself twice over. Reading the set against SOW Schedule "A" produced 40 requests for material, access and people it does not contain; then an eighth artifact arrived on 2026-09-16, fifteen to eighteen months older than the rest and referenced by none of them. The set is not the whole picture, and it is still moving.

Working notes

What the material actually establishes

There is a well-articulated target state (June 2026, Canada Segment EA), a well-articulated MVP that deliberately excludes most of it, and two client-authored critiques of that MVP — one recommending re-architecture, one returning a NO GO on the October date. Alongside them, two machine-derived inventories showing an estate in considerably better functional shape than the critiques alone would suggest.

The six cross-cutting observations are recorded on the client resources index. They are preliminary and need validating before they are shown to anyone.

The question this work stream really has to answer

"No agreed North Star" is concern #2 of the client's own executive readiness review, and finding F-02 of their own architecture assessment. It is stated, by them, in writing, twice.

That makes WS 1's validation activity narrower and sharper than it looks. We are not establishing what the vision is — there are candidate statements of it. We are establishing which one is of record, and who says so. Until that has a name attached, WS 2 is documenting a target state whose authority is unclear, and the client's own words say every decision built on it risks being reversed.

Things to raise at kick-off

• Walk the client requests register — at minimum the 23 High items, which block named deliverables or sit on the critical path (WS1-A2h).
• Confirm the calendar: the SOW's timeline is a graphic that did not survive conversion, so the schedule in Deliverables is derived, not quoted.
• Establish who validates the vision, and in which forum.
• Settle the handoff format, or at least agree when it will be settled — it gates both executive presentations. See open questions, items 1 and 3.
• Establish access to the people behind each artifact. Several of our questions are answerable in ten minutes by their authors and not at all from the documents.

Ambiguities to resolve before WS 2

#	Ambiguity	Why it matters
1	Is the June 2026 strategy still Canada Segment EA's position?	It is the only candidate North Star
2	Is di-dashboard-services (Fastify, in DEV) the same thing as the ADS's Next.js Dashboard BFF?	One is promote-to-PROD, the other is a build — different roadmaps
3	Is the criticality dispute (Gold vs Critical Digital Properties) resolved?	Every recovery number depends on it
4	Is the ADS being revised, against which conditions, and on what date?	Determines whether our target state lands into a moving or settled base
5	Does our WS 2 output become the North Star of record?	Changes what the deliverable has to be and who must approve it