Verification-Driven Delivery (VDD) Methodology

Abstract

Verification-Driven Delivery (VDD) is an open methodology for estimating, pricing, verifying, and forecasting software delivery in the AI era. It replaces billed hours and relative story sizes with a countable unit of verified work, the Delivery Brick. A user story is decomposed into Bricks across twelve categories with explicit complexity modifiers; each category is priced from a Base Unit Rate calibrated on the organization's own delivery history and weighted by measured Independent Verification Effort; delivery dates are reported as P50 and P85 ranges recalculated from actual throughput; and every Delivery Unit counts as delivered only after it passes an Independent Verification Gate, performed by someone who did not implement it. Requirement changes are repriced by Re-Bricking, recounting only the changed part. This record contains Version 1.0 of the VDD materials:– Specification v1.0: the normative rules, definitions and formulas;– Implementation Playbook v1.0: the adoption path in seven stages;– Training presentation v1.0;– Spreadsheet templates and a worked example (Brick Ledger, Rate Card, Throughput & Forecast, Environment Setup). VDD draws on established estimation practices, including Function Point Analysis, COCOMO, PERT and Wideband Delphi, as described in Appendix A of the Specification. This is a first version: empirical validation on external projects is planned, and feedback is welcome. More information: https://vdd-methodology.org Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, with additional permission for free use and adaptation within an organization, including delivering software to its own clients, under the VDD Licensing & IP Policy v1.0: https://vdd-methodology.org/license. Commercial use of the methodology by others (training, consulting, audits, certification, tools, translations) requires a written agreement with Sofycod Sp. z o.o.