Step 0: know what you are building.
breaking tasks
The process of breaking tasks down.
- We need to research tasks to see how complex they are + how to break them down
- Research takes time! It should be its own task
- Over the process of research, the task becomes much simpler
estimating tasks
Requirement: tasks should always be estimated by the person doing the work.
- Task Estimation should be done each time! tasks shift
- Estimate only in powers of 2: 30 minutes, 1h, 2h, 4h, 8h, etc.
- If you never done something before, double the time than you estimate
- If you are teaching someone to do something, quadruple the time than you estimate
- Add buffer time (*1.5), especially if you think yourself as a procrastinator
- Focus is draining! You need breaks. Take breaks.
- Things will go wrong! Plan for it.
time iterating
- If anything is longer than 8 hours, that’s a good sign you need to break it down!
- Likely that you have to break things down
MVP
You probably don’t have time to build your feature list
- MVP: minimum viable product
- We need the basic set of features; you probably have more features than you have time to build
- Prioritize what you build based on…
- Dependencies: is this required for other stuff to work
- Viability: can the product exist without this?
- Time: how long does it take?
Be ruthless about what you cut; talk to your user.