We’re moving to a four-week R&D sprint per station, starting with garde manger, with two taste gates — Tuesday 3 pm and Friday 10 am — to lock a 12-dish spring menu by March 15. I’m assigning each sous a course lead and asking line leads for one prototype each; if you’ve balanced creativity with service flow on a similar cadence, what checkpoints kept the team aligned?
Right after the Tuesday gate, run a 20‑minute mock push (8–10 fake tickets) with pass timing and a simple scorecard (“taste, plating, station load”) so we can lock prep weights and plating constraints by Friday — a dress rehearsal without the tux. Tiny caveat: four weeks per station can silo, so add a week‑2 cross‑station swap to poke holes in service flow; if that’s too much churn, keeping strict sous ownership works.
On a similar cadence, a Wednesday 11:30 ‘WIP freeze’ kept us aligned: each course lead posts a one‑line commit in the pass log with current spec and a target ticket time, and any change after that needs a station‑lead thumbs‑up so ‘Friday 10 am’ stays taste, not scope… Small caveat starting with garde manger — we also do a quick cold‑well real‑estate check right after to keep station load honest; I can mock up the commit template if that helps.
We’ve had good luck with a Thursday ‘spec card lock’: each course lead posts a one‑pager with gram weights, pickup order, and allergy flags plus a pass photo, then we run an 8‑ticket micro‑service to confirm times and freeze prep/cost until the Friday gate. @davwils if you’ve got a commit format, I can drop our spec card template — want it?
I’d add a 15‑minute cost/availability check right before the Friday 10 am gate: each course lead confirms per‑plate cost and pings vendors on any spring items so we don’t lock dishes we can’t buy by March 15. Our rule of thumb is ‘no new proteins after Friday 10a’ — , when that slips it wrecks prep and waste. Worth piloting this week with garde manger?
Quick win: add a ‘prep-minute budget’ check Thu 3 pm — tally per dish’s day-of prep minutes and live-fire touches, cap it (say ≤12 prep min and ≤2 à la minute moves) and reassign components before lock, so the pass doesn’t feel like Tetris on hard mode; pairs well with @sara_j_12’s cost check. Want me to drop the simple tracker we used?
Last spring, a midweek plateware/pass capacity check saved us: Wednesday 2 pm we counted plates/bowls per dish, confirmed dish pit cycle time, and ran a 6–8 ticket sim with expo to catch vessel shortages before the Friday lock. It pairs well with @sara_j_12’s cost check because you can swap vessels early to hit both cost and throughput — want me to share the one‑pager we use for counts and a quick pass map?
One thing that kept us aligned: a 20‑minute ‘pickup film’ Thu 4 pm — each course lead runs their dish live while we record; we replay with expo to lock steps, catch station collisions, and set the final garnish/mise map before Friday… If filming feels heavy, a quick audio run-through over the pass works. @garcia41 want the simple filming checklist?