Project Planning Skill

Comprehensive knowledge for planning software projects from ideation to execution.

Planning Methodology

1. Discovery Phase

Questions to Ask:

• What problem are we solving?
• Who are the target users?
• What does success look like?
• What are the constraints?
• What's the timeline?

2. Requirements Gathering

Requirement Types:

• Functional: What the system must do
• Non-Functional: How well it must do it
• Technical: Implementation constraints
• Business: Organizational needs

3. User Story Format

**As a** [type of user]
**I want** [goal/desire]
**So that** [benefit/value]

**Acceptance Criteria:**
- [ ] Criterion 1
- [ ] Criterion 2
- [ ] Criterion 3

**Priority:** P0/P1/P2
**Estimate:** S/M/L/XL

4. Prioritization Framework

MoSCoW Method:

• Must Have: Critical for MVP
• Should Have: Important but not critical
• Could Have: Nice to have
• Won't Have: Out of scope (for now)

Priority Levels:

Priority	Description	Timeline
P0	Critical	Immediate
P1	High	This sprint
P2	Medium	Next sprint
P3	Low	Backlog

5. Estimation Techniques

T-Shirt Sizing:

Size	Complexity	Time
XS	Trivial	< 1 hour
S	Simple	1-4 hours
M	Medium	4-8 hours
L	Complex	1-3 days
XL	Very Complex	> 3 days

Story Points (Fibonacci): 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21

6. Scope Management

In Scope:

• Explicitly defined features
• Agreed requirements
• Documented acceptance criteria

Out of Scope:

• Features deferred to future
• Explicitly excluded items
• Nice-to-haves beyond MVP

7. Risk Assessment

Risk	Likelihood	Impact	Mitigation
Scope creep	High	High	Strict change control
Technical debt	Medium	Medium	Regular refactoring
Key person dependency	Medium	High	Documentation, pairing

Templates

Project Brief Template

# Project: [Name]

## Overview
[1-2 sentence description]

## Problem Statement
[What problem does this solve?]

## Goals
1. [Primary goal]
2. [Secondary goal]
3. [Tertiary goal]

## Success Metrics
- [Metric 1]: [Target]
- [Metric 2]: [Target]

## Scope
### In Scope
- [Feature 1]
- [Feature 2]

### Out of Scope
- [Excluded 1]
- [Excluded 2]

## Timeline
- Phase 1: [Date]
- Phase 2: [Date]
- Launch: [Date]

Epic Template

# Epic: [Name]

## Description
[What this epic accomplishes]

## User Stories
- [ ] US-001: [Story]
- [ ] US-002: [Story]

## Acceptance Criteria
- [ ] [Criterion]

## Dependencies
- [Dependency 1]