AzamSharp

Dividing Tasks into Smaller Tasks to get the Work Done
published on 5/9/2009 3:26:25 PM

One thing I have learned from Software Development is that you can achieve much more by taking small steps at a time instead of a one giant leap. A task in software development is known as a story. A good story is short and to the point. As, the complexity of the software increases the story gets shorter. This gives the developer a very small task to work on hence focusing on a very small portion of the requirement.

Here is a story that is NOT well organized.

User should be able to log into the system and pull out his profile. If the user is not in the system then an option is presented to create a profile.

The problem with the above story is that it is covering too many aspects of the system in a single requirement. These tasks are although related to each other but should not be bonded together to make a single story.

The above story should be divided into smaller stories as shown below:

1)   User should be able to log into the system
2)   User should be able to pull out the profile
3)   If the user profile is not present then give option to create a profile

The above stories can be further divided into more stories. Like the third one can be divided into the following stories:

1)   Check if the user is present in the system
2)   Give user an option to create a new profile.

I usually write down the stories on a piece of paper. For some reason I find this way of maintaining the task much easier. Also, if you have several independent stories with the same priority then you should always pick up the one that is easiest to implement.

No you are not a WUSS for picking up the easiest story first! The reason behind picking up is the easiest story first is to boost your confidence level. Once you are finished with the easiest story you will have confidence to work on the next story. At first it may sounds kind of silly but trust me it works!

The slicing and dicing of tasks into smaller tasks does not only work in Software Development but it works in all aspects of our life. We should always break the tasks into smaller tasks which can be achieved easily. This is the correct approach to solve problems and to reach simple solutions.

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