A simple checklist to kickstart any project
I have a love/hate relationship with new projects. It’s all about new. New means fresh, and different, and challenging, but it also means unfamiliar and unknown. “What if I don’t have what it takes to come up with a solution? I don’t even know what this is all about…” All kinds of things cross my mind. Even now, with dozens of projects behind my back, I still get this creeping fear of the unknown. It is there, but it doesn’t scare me much anymore, because I developed a system, a mental checklist that I use to get started.
I use this checklist for any new project, big or small. It is simple, and it works.
It is a series of questions that I ask myself. They usually come in order.
Where are we going?
Ideas for new features, or new products come from all kinds of places, and they come in all kinds of forms. It might be a conversation with stakeholders, a request from the customer, or a dreaded requirements document. They paint the future, bright and clear, void of problems, and filled with happy customers and increased revenues. Sometimes they offer faint references to the grim present, or even ugly past.
Where are we now?
No matter where you want to go you have to start from where you are.
What are the expectations?
There is something repelling about the word requirements. Not sure what it is. Perhaps it is the fact that usually they come in a long dry document that rarely makes sense, and requires conversations with whoever put it together. It also implies something rigid. Something that doesn’t change.
How is it related to what we already have?
- Is it something completely new?
- Is it a new feature that is an offshoot from the existing one?
How can I validate the idea quickly?
Are there any technical constraints?
If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else. Yogi Berra