Thinking about systems where every signal has a lifecycle

I've been spending time looking at how teams handle operational signals.

By "signal," I mean anything that requires attention:

• an alert
• a customer complaint
• a failed payment
• a support escalation
• a risk event
• a system anomaly

One pattern I've noticed is that signals are often treated as notifications rather than entities with their own lifecycle.

A notification appears.

Someone sees it.

Something may or may not happen next.

But in many cases, there's no clear progression from detection to closure.

Lately I've been wondering whether every signal should have a defined lifecycle, something like:

Open → Acknowledged → Investigating → Action Taken → Resolved

Not because every process needs more structure, but because unresolved signals can easily disappear into inboxes, chat channels, dashboards, and ticket queues.

For those of you running teams, products, or operations:

• Do you think every signal needs a lifecycle?
• Which types of signals deserve one?
• At what point does lifecycle management become unnecessary process?
• What systems have you seen handle this particularly well?

Curious to hear how others think about this.