Method
How Stax safely changes a system that matters
Software construction is getting cheaper. Understanding, judgment, and verification are not. The Stax Method is how those stay under control when the software matters.
- 01 Understand Recover how the operation and current system actually work.
- 02 Model Make workflows, states, business rules, data, dependencies, and constraints explicit.
- 03 Decide Maintain, stabilize, extend, modernize, rebuild, replace—or leave it alone.
- 04 Change Engineer the right intervention.
- 05 Verify Prove that behavior and outcomes match the intended result.
- 06 Learn Keep system knowledge current as the business and software evolve.
Understand
Recover how the operation and current system actually work—workflows, exceptions, roles, and the institutional knowledge that never made it into documentation. Discovery starts with conversation: stages, decisions, exceptions, and how work runs today—not only features and data entities.
Model
Make workflows, states, business rules, data, dependencies, and constraints explicit enough to reason about change without guessing.
Decide
Determine whether to maintain, stabilize, extend, modernize, rebuild, replace, or leave the system alone. The answer is not always more software.
Change
Engineer the right intervention—through a Stax-owned engagement or embedded inside your existing team’s process.
Verify
Prove that behavior and outcomes match the intended result before the operation depends on the change. Edge cases identified early are tested directly; nothing ships only because it demoed cleanly.
Learn
Keep system knowledge current as the business and software evolve, so the next change does not start from zero.
Groundwork Assessment = Understand + Model + Decide
When an important system is difficult to change safely, the first problem is often not implementation. A Groundwork Assessment covers the first three stages of the Method: recover what you have, make it explicit, and recommend a path before significant implementation begins.
The result is not automatically a development project. Standalone Groundwork Assessments start around $3,500.
Groundwork documentation—living architecture and context docs maintained during a Stax-owned build—is related but separate from a standalone Assessment.
Two ways Stax can deliver the work
Delivery modes are how Change and Verify get carried out. They are not a second lifecycle.
Stax-owned engagement
Stax owns the defined engineering outcome from assessment through implementation and verification—including operational software when a new system is the right answer. On Stax-owned projects, understanding becomes the foundation of a Groundwork documentation set—structured documents built alongside the work and committed to the repository—so the system does not live only in one person’s head.
Typical documentation includes architecture, data model, relationships, build map, code notes, design conventions, and codebase rules. Details evolve as the system is built and tested. At handoff: codebase, documentation, and access to the systems involved—nothing withheld.
Embedded / collaborative engineering
Stax works inside the client’s existing engineering environment for a defined problem, milestone, or period. Mature organizations already have ADRs, RFCs, issue trackers, architecture docs, and standards—those remain the source of truth.
I work within current architecture, planning, documentation, review, testing, CI/CD, and delivery conventions—filling gaps rather than imposing a parallel process. See embedded engineering.
Human-Directed Software Engineering
HDSE is the working framework for reliable human/AI delegation, specification, implementation, verification, and acceptance—inside the same Method, not a competing process.