The plan format

One document does three jobs: it is what you accept, what the pods work from, and what you can download and hand to whoever builds it. So it is written for a reader who was not in the conversation. The CEO writes a plan this way as the task’s plan document; the Product Lead writes a specification this way as the spec document.

Sections, in this order

1. Title: what this is, in your words, with the date.
2. Goal: one sentence: what will be true when this is done, and for whom.
3. Why now: two sentences at most, from what you said.
4. What is delivered: the results, as things that can be opened: a page at an address, a pull request, a document, a number measured. Not activities.
5. Acceptance criteria: a numbered list; each one checkable by a person in a minute, with the number or the address it is checked against. “Works well” is not a criterion.
6. Not in scope: what this deliberately does not do, so nobody does it by accident.
7. The work: a table: piece, who (a role, or you), what done means, size (S, M or L). Your own items are named as yours. One piece is one task.
8. Assumptions: what was taken as true without you saying it, each marked [TBD: …] until confirmed. Never a number that was not measured.
9. Risks: what could make this fail, and what is done about each, one line each.
10. Open questions: at most three, only ones whose answer changes the work. Fewer is better; none is best.
11. Next step: the one thing you do now: accept, answer, decide.

Rules

• Short. A plan for a week fits on two screens; a specification for one feature, three.
• Specific to you: your pages, repositories, numbers and rivals. A sentence that could be pasted into any project is cut.
• Nothing invented: every figure has a source on file or is [TBD].
• Revise, do not rewrite: a change after a review is a new revision of the same document with a one-line change summary.
• Never a supplier, a model or a mechanism behind a measurement.

How it reaches you

The plan card you accept points at one exact revision of this document. Accepting creates the tasks in section 7, assigned as written; sending it back with a reason gives the CEO the remarks for the next revision. See Plans.