Sweary

Lightweight

Agile

Planning

You've got a load of shit you want done.

Organise your shit into two piles: shit that needs to be done and shit that improves the shit that needs to be done.

As you build your piles of shit, think about the shit that you say needs to be done. Can it be divided into smaller pieces of shit: shit that needs to be done, and shit that improves the shit that needs to be done? If so, rewrite it as multiple, smaller pieces of shit and divide them among the two piles.

Put the pile of shit that improves the shit that needs to be done to one side. Focus on the shit that needs to be done.

Order the shit that needs to be done in the way that is easiest to implement, or addresses the biggest risks early. Whatever the dev team consider best. There's no difference in business priority – it's all shit that needs to be done.

Come up with acceptance criteria for the shit that needs to be done. As you do so, you'll see that some aspects of it are improvements and not the shit that needs to be done. Add those to the shit that improves the shit that needs to be done and focus on the shit that needs to be done.

Do you need to estimate the shit that needs to be done? No! It all needs to be done. The dev team will do it as fast as they can. Estimating the work will only waste time they could spend getting the shit done. If an estimate for some of the shit would change your opinion about whether the shit should be done, it's not shit that needs to be done. Put it on the pile of shit that improves the shit that needs to be done and focus on the shit that needs to be done.

Do you need to estimate the shit that improves the shit that needs to be done? No! Focus on the shit that needs to be done.

Right. Shit planned! Get to work.

Finished doing the shit that needed to be done? Now go back to the shit that improves the shit that needed to be done. What improvement would make the product beat the competition / keep you in business / get you to profit fastest? Do you now have some better ideas than those in the pile of shit that came out of the last planning session? That's now the shit that needs to be done. Start the planning the shit again.