---
title: The three loops
summary: Discovery and design, develop and deploy, direct and define. Three loops that feed each other, with the 6Ds as their phases.
type: concept
order: 2
loop_stage: all
domains: [people, business, technology]
status: working
version: 0.1
updated: 2026-10-25
sources: [DRF v1.0 deck (2011), Discovery/Design loop (2014), 6Ds Collaboration Framework (2023-05-07), World Vision Mural boards (2024), decision 2026-10-15]
confidence: stated
related: [problem-space, well-informed-space, cost-of-contact]
---

The DRF is three loops, not a line of phases. The main loop is discovery and design. It hooks into develop and deploy, which ties back to direct and define, where product lives. Each loop runs on its own cadence and hands its output to the next.

## The loops and their phases (the 6Ds)

| Loop | Phases | Zone | Advocates for |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Strategy | Direct ↔ Define | Strategic | Business rules and objectives |
| Envisioning | Discover ↔ Detail | Envisioning | Human wants and needs |
| Making | Develop ↔ Deploy | Making | Technical feasibility |

What moves between them is specific. KPIs become business requirements. Discovery produces jobs to be done and designs. Making ships code, and the product's monitoring data flows back as metrics against the KPIs. That data lands in the [well-informed space](/framework/well-informed-space), which informs the next Direct.

## Inside discovery

Discovery has three activities, drawn the same way since 2011: listen and observe, interpret, model. Each one produces a defined artifact (see [Artifacts](/artifacts)). Design takes those models and works through proposing and prioritizing, ideation and prototyping, and specifying and detailing.

## Not either-or

The DRF was built to sit inside whatever process a team already runs, Agile or Waterfall. It is a model to keep in the back of your mind, not a replacement method. Design thinking is the process for a sprint zero; scaled over a whole development lifecycle, it falls apart after a couple of sprints. The loops are what keep going after that.

**In the harness** (working proposal): each loop is a set of skills that produce that loop's artifacts, and each handoff is a file the next loop's skills can read.

## Open questions

- Deliver or Deploy? Design or Detail? Both pairs have been used. The 2024 pages switched to Deploy and Detail.
- The [Triton](/framework/triton) runs the loops in a different order when development leads. Is it a mode of the DRF or a separate method?