Polaris. 57 best practices for the transformation and growth of IT systems
A North Star for IT projects that need to be delivered well
For the first few years of running an IT company, I was convinced that the problem was technology. That if I picked the right framework, a strong architect, and a sensible stack, the project would fall into place on its own. Over time, I realized that was an illusion. Projects rarely fail because of the code alone. Much more often, they break down where people cannot agree on what “done” actually means.
Polaris grew out of that observation. It brings together 57 practices that helped us at Inwedo deliver projects for more than a decade: large and small, in Poland and overseas, with clients who knew exactly what they wanted and with those who figured it out along the way. I do not see it as a checklist. It is closer to a compass you come back to when a project starts losing clarity.
Polaris brings order to IT system work across the three areas where projects tend to crack first
Product and process, technology and development, documentation and testing. Each of these areas carries a different kind of risk: business, technical, or operational. If you have ever run a project where something kept disappearing from the sprint plan, sprint after sprint, and no one could honestly explain why, then you already know the problem almost never sits in just one place.
In 2022, we gave this standard a formal structure alongside Inwedo’s ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certification. What had previously lived mostly in the heads of architects and product managers was given a shared name, structure, and place. As a result, every new person joining the team sees the same standard, whether it is their first day or their fifth year with us.
Inside the book, you will find:
What Polaris is and when to reach for it
When you are launching a new initiative, modernizing a legacy system, or feeling a project starting to drift apart.
57 practices across three areas
Product and process, technology and development, documentation and testing. A map you return to when a project starts losing direction.
A step-by-step IT project audit
How to prepare an audit, how to run it as a workshop with the team, and how to turn it into conclusions that genuinely change decisions.
Roles and responsibility
Who owns what at each stage, and what starts going wrong when no one says it clearly.
Case studies from Inwedo projects
Concrete improvements from client projects. With context, decisions, and also the things we did not do, even though in hindsight they probably would have helped.
Definition of Ready and Definition of Done in practice
Two simple tools that bring order to collaboration faster than many overbuilt frameworks ever will.
Who Polaris is for
I wrote Polaris for people who carry the responsibility for getting a project across the line. To a client. To the board. To their own team. For CTOs and engineering leaders who have real influence over how a system gets built. For product managers who spend their days translating business to technology and technology back to business. For QA professionals who know quality does not begin at the end. And for project sponsors who want to truly understand what sits behind phrases like “technical debt.”
If you have ever had to explain why a project is not going the way it was supposed to, there is a good chance you will find things here framed differently than in most handbooks.
What changed once we started working with this standard
Not everything can be reduced to metrics. The atmosphere in a project, the quality of conversations with a client, or the team’s sense that they understand why they are doing the work does not fit neatly into a chart. But some effects are very visible.
85%
of sprints completed according to plan (previously around 60%)
60%
test coverage across audited projects
20%
lower system maintenance costs on the client side
57
practices across 3 areas, built on 10+ years of project work
Polaris is available free of charge
I put the entire standard into a single PDF and made it available for free on the Inwedo website. If you want to read it, that is where you will find it.