Overview
Turn a validated data specification into a sequence of small tasks that can be implemented and verified independently. A good plan protects the team from wide, risky pipeline edits.
When to Use
- multi-step ingestion or modeling work
- changes involving orchestration, infrastructure, and transformations
- work that needs coordination across contracts, checks, and deployment
Do not use this when the task is a single isolated change with obvious verification.
Workflow
-
Map the affected layers. Typical layers include:
- source connections
- raw landing
- staging transformations
- business models
- orchestration
- tests and checks
- documentation and runbooks
-
Order work by dependency. Good sequence:
- contracts
- scaffolding
- ingestion
- transformations
- checks
- orchestration
- rollout and recovery notes
-
Keep tasks small. Each task should:
- have one clear outcome
- touch a limited set of files
- define how it will be verified
- avoid mixing unrelated concerns
-
Call out risk points. Always identify:
- schema evolution risk
- backfill risk
- cost or performance risk
- downstream compatibility risk
-
Define evidence for every task. Examples:
- test results
- contract validation output
- successful dry run
- row count reconciliation
- lineage or docs update
Common Rationalizations
| Rationalization | Reality |
|---|---|
| "It is faster to change everything in one pass." | Wide changes increase blast radius and make rollback harder. |
| "We can skip task boundaries because the repo is small." | Data dependencies, not repo size, create risk. |
| "The orchestrator wiring can wait until the end." | Scheduling and retry behavior often shape the implementation. |
Red Flags
- a single task spans ingestion, modeling, orchestration, and rollout
- verification says only "run the pipeline"
- rollback or compatibility concerns are not mentioned
- the plan does not separate build work from publish work
Verification
- Tasks are ordered by dependency
- Each task has acceptance criteria and evidence
- Risks and rollback concerns are called out
- Checks and documentation are part of the plan, not afterthoughts