Speedy

Lightweight

Agile

Planning

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

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

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

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

Order the stuff 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 stuff that needs to be done.

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

Do you need to estimate the stuff 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 stuff done. If an estimate for some of the stuff would change your opinion about whether the stuff should be done, it's not stuff that needs to be done. Put it on the pile of stuff that improves the stuff that needs to be done and focus on the stuff that needs to be done.

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

Right. Stuff planned! Get to work.

Finished doing the stuff that needed to be done? Now go back to the stuff that improves the stuff 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 stuff that came out of the last planning session? That's now the stuff that needs to be done. Start the planning the stuff again.