Definition
The flag lifecycle is the path a flagged item travels:
- New — just raised, visible to the whole team.
- Acknowledged — the team has seen it and taken it on.
- Deferred — deliberately parked, still open, and still counted. Deferred is honest; ignored is invisible.
- Resolved — settled, with the resolution date recorded. Resolved flags move off the active board and into the archive.
Open flags are promises. The organization’s size sets the responsiveness window in which they are expected to reach resolution. Along the way, a flag can be promoted — onto a meeting agenda for real discussion time, or into a task when the discussion produces work.
Why This Matters
The lifecycle gives the team a truthful vocabulary for where a concern stands. Deferred exists so a team that can’t work a flag now can park it in the open, on the record, instead of letting it sit untouched in New. And whatever the flag taught stays in the record after resolution — searchable, linked, and citable the next time something similar surfaces.