MADE IN DETROIT

Over the last few years I’ve noticed that the single best predictor of whether or not my product will be shipped on schedule is very simple: how small and concrete are the remaining tasks.

I’ll almost certainly slip if the project is defined by daily or larger, coarse-grained, tasks. However, if the project is broken down to the smallest possible tasks (typically estimated between 1hr and 1day), I’m significantly more likely to launch on schedule.

Th reasons for this are plenty and mostly fairly obvious, largely stemming from the idea that if I can’t break something down to a task more specific than a day, I probably don’t yet have a full understanding of what that task actually entails.

As somebody who doesn’t enjoy BDUF, the corollary to this is that I need to be continuously updating my task-list by breaking down coarse-grained estimates into more specific tasks as soon as those tasks are known.