How the LEARN loop works

Every project in Sandbox moves through five phases. You'll see them as a row of steps on the project's board; the current phase is highlighted, and you can click any phase to see its tools.

The five phases

1. Look & Listen (L) — Frame the problem and the people. Tools: Problem & Root Cause (5 Whys), Project Charter, Stakeholders, Next Big Idea, Idea Pitch.
2. Elaborate & Evaluate (E) — Model the solution and prioritize. Tools: Lean Canvas, Personas, Backlog, Traction Model (AARRR), and the Prioritization hub (RICE, MoSCoW, Kano, 90% Rule).
3. Adapt & Agree (A) — Commit to how. Design Experiments and plan the work into a certified Sprint Plan.
4. Run & Register (R) — Run experiments on the sprint plan calendar, record measurements, and log every outcome in the Learnings Matrix.
5. Next or Not? (N) — Hold a retrospective and make the call: pivot, persevere, or kill.

Advancing and stepping back

The phase you're on is a visualization of where your focus primarily sits in the loop — not a hard gate on what you can do. You might be running activities all the way over in Run & Register while your focus is still in Elaborate & Evaluate, because you're still defining the what's and who's of your Big Idea. Advancing and stepping back simply move that marker to match where your attention really is.

• Use Advance phase on the board to move forward when you're ready.
• Jumped ahead too soon, or want another pass at the previous phase? Use Step back to return the loop one phase. Your work is never touched — every artefact, experiment, and learning stays exactly where it is; only the loop's current phase moves.
• Two phases can't be stepped back:
  • Look & Listen is the first phase, so there's nothing behind it.
  • A Next or Not? decision that's already been made is locked in. Learn more.
• Who can advance or step back depends on role — see Member rights & permissions.
• At Next or Not? you run a retrospective and record a decision. Pivot or persevere starts a fresh loop back at Look & Listen (the loop counter ticks up); kill stops the project.
• There's no "wrong" pace — some loops are a single afternoon's experiment.
• You can also start a new loop yourself, and run several loops in parallel. Learn more about using loops.

X — the Xperiment engine

Running through A → R → N is X (Xperiment): hypotheses → loops (measurements) → learnings → a decision. It's the engine that turns activity into evidence.