Blueprints and guardrails
Blueprints are repeatable procedures you apply to a project to create real tasks. Guardrails are warnings your team votes on, drawn from past problems.
A blueprint is a repeatable procedure your team wrote down, such as “launch checklist for a website”. Applying it to a project creates real tasks. A guardrail is a warning tied to something that went wrong before, voted on by your team. A guardrail shows a caution and changes nothing.
Both live under Knowledge in the sidebar: Blueprints and Guardrails.
How a blueprint gets published
Section titled “How a blueprint gets published”A blueprint goes through review before anyone can apply it, because applying it writes tasks on a project.
- Someone writes it as a Draft.
- They choose Submit for review. It shows as Pending Review.
- A reviewer chooses Activate to publish it, or Reject to send it back to its author as a draft, with an optional reason.
- Once Active, it is offered to projects it matches, and the leads of those projects are told.
Common jobs
Section titled “Common jobs”Write a blueprint
Section titled “Write a blueprint”- Open Blueprints and choose New Blueprint.
- Give it a title and description, then add Steps. Each step becomes a task when the blueprint is applied.
- Optionally add a Checklist, Resources, and Trigger Conditions that describe which projects it fits.
- Choose Create Blueprint, then Submit for review when it is ready.
Apply a blueprint to a project
Section titled “Apply a blueprint to a project”- Open the project and go to its Blueprints tab.
- Under Apply a Blueprint, choose one from Choose a Blueprint… and choose Apply.
- You get one parent task named after the blueprint, with one subtask for each step.
The Applied Blueprints list on that tab shows who applied each one, when, and how far its tasks have got.
Act on a suggestion
Section titled “Act on a suggestion”ProjectBrain suggests blueprints that match a project in a few places: the kickoff check on the project overview, the retro, and the Risk Radar dashboard widget. On a suggestion you can Apply, Dismiss, or Snooze 30 days.
Turn a lesson into a blueprint
Section titled “Turn a lesson into a blueprint”In a project’s post-mortem, choose Promote to Blueprint on a learning. A draft is written for you to edit and submit.
Rate a blueprint you used
Section titled “Rate a blueprint you used”When a project is completed or its post-mortem is finished, you are asked how well each applied blueprint worked, from one to five stars. Ratings set the blueprint’s Effectiveness score.
Vote on a guardrail
Section titled “Vote on a guardrail”- Open Guardrails.
- Choose Upvote or Downvote on a strategy.
- To add your own, choose Contribute Strategy.
Leads can feature the most useful guardrails. When a guardrail has a blueprint that answers it, Run this opens that blueprint. It does not apply anything.
Who can do what
Section titled “Who can do what”| Role | Blueprints | Guardrails |
|---|---|---|
| Owner | Everything | Everything |
| Executive | Read, write, edit, delete and publish | Read, edit, feature and vote |
| Team lead | Read, write and edit | Read, edit, feature and vote |
| Individual contributor | Read and write drafts | Read, contribute and vote |
| Client, External | Nothing | Nothing |
Limits and surprises
Section titled “Limits and surprises”- Deleting a blueprint does not delete a guardrail that points to it. The warning stays.
- Use counts only include projects you can see.
- Both features are on for every organization. An admin can turn either off if your organization does not use it.