We connect our daily work to larger goals with Epics. We plan our quarterly (3 months) roadmap by creating a list of epics accessible to everybody via ‣. As much as possible, we aim to connect tasks to Epics so we know we are working towards the plan.
We have broken work into two-week (10 business day) cycles. The purpose of a cycle is to focus our priorities during the period in a thoughtful way. Similar to the Agile method but unlike sprints, cycles are not tied to releases. Cycles should feel reasonable.
At the start of each cycle, we come together and assign tasks with a Start Date
and an Estimate
. By default, tasks are one day unless overridden. Estimate takes into account not only the amount of development work there is but research and other external factors, such as slowdowns due to switching to other tasks.
We have had months-long tasks before. It’s difficult to see progress when working on such large tasks with seemingly no end in sight. We break down our tasks into smaller parts whenever possible. Ideally, we aim to complete several concrete tasks every week, and we should certainly not have tasks that are bigger than two weeks.
Every cycle, we assign a new leader who is in charge of check-ins. For two weeks, the cycle leader should: