eat an elephant piece by piece
Hi all!
Today I want to share with you how to “eat an elephant” piece by piece based on my personal experience. This article will be useful for business and system analysts who face large-scale projects and tasks that require decomposition.
A little bit of background
Imagine you have a large-scale project: the application being developed is intended for nine companies and consists of six components (or modules, or subsystems). The project involves three mini-teams, each of which includes a front-end and back-end developer, an analyst, and a tester.
The main task is to decompose and describe tasks for all members of the project team.
How to eat an “elephant”?
1. Understanding the purpose and components of the project
The first step is to clearly understand the purpose of the project and understand what each of the six components are and what they are used for. Understanding how each module or subsystem contributes to the overall goal is essential to successful decomposition. Без этого фундамента дальнейшая работа будет затруднена.
2. Structuring components
Once the purpose and purpose of the components are defined, the structuring stage begins. I prefer to use the following approach:
Epics are large blocks of work that combine multiple user stories.
Use case — specific scenarios of system use that describe user interaction with the system.
Feature (Task) – functionality or tasks arising from use cases.
Main scenario, Alternative scenario 1, Alternative scenario 2, and so on are different scenarios for completing tasks.
To visualize this structure, I use Miro, a tool that allows you to quickly and clearly create functional maps of a project.
3. Documentation and connection to the knowledge base
After structuring the components, you need to describe the tasks in a knowledge base, for example, in Confluence or XWiki, Notion. I recommend linking the two tools by specifying links to the knowledge base pages related to the corresponding Epic, Use case, and Feature. This creates a coherent system where all the information is connected and easily accessible. Не забываем, что у каждого Epic, Use case, Feature должна быть своя уникальная нумерация.
The benefits of this approach
Ясное представление объема задач.Creating a feature map in Miro helps to get a clear picture of the scope of the project. This is especially useful for architects and leads of development teams (backend/frontend), as well as testers.Упрощение планирования.Having detailed tasks helps teams plan their work effectively by prioritizing tasks: what needs to be done first, and what can be postponed to the next sprint.Взаимосвязь между инструментами.Syncing Miro and the knowledge base makes it easy to drill down into the details of each case, making it easier to learn about the issues.Фокусировка задач.A functional map helps each team member understand what has already been done and what still needs to be done. This helps them better focus on the tasks at hand and reduces the likelihood of duplicating work.Быстрое введение новых специалистов.The system simplifies the adaptation of new team members: thanks to clear and accessible information on all components, the time spent on studying the project is significantly reduced.
In conclusion
Task decomposition is not just breaking the “elephant” into pieces, it is a whole process that requires a structured approach and clarity in understanding the end goal. Using tools such as Miro and knowledge bases helps make this process more manageable and transparent, which ultimately leads to successful project implementation.
This approach really allows you to effectively organize work on large-scale projects and ensures transparency at all stages of development. I hope you find this information useful!
p.s. in the next article I will tell you about the details of the task description in the knowledge base 🙂
