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Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

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Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

#21

Post by vemv »

I use github's kanban board and like the concept of Kanban overall. Some people don't realise that Kanban is quite the opposite of Scrum.

One variation that has worked for me / peers over the years is having a "Next 5" column. i.e. something bigger than Current but smaller than the backlog.

That enables always having a practical, prioritized mid-term plan (assuming you regularly tweak the Next 5 selection).

At the same time you don't stress about a supposed deadline for forthcoming work. You just pick the next card, only when the current one is done. That's called "Flexibility in prioritization" as per asyncmanifesto.

Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

#22

Post by talkingtab »

I use the concept of demo days - where I demo something to myself. Some people would think of it as a sprint, but a demo enforces that it is something I can actually show. Like "I can launch the program and have it say print 'hello'". In my experience this works much better than stages or percentages. Lots of things just fall out. A demo that has bugs is not a demo for example.

I use a stack of demos, each as a 3x5 card. Low overhead, easy and quick to modify, etc.

As a solo dev it is was too easy to get lost in the process and tools, but this works well for me.

Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

#24

Post by franciscop »

muzani wrote: post #4

Most tools have a lot of overhead. As a solo dev, your advantage is speed, but a little friction and grist is needed sometimes. It takes only an hour or so to restructure it for more than one person, so cross the bridge when you get there. For to do lists I use Sublime+PlainTasks plugin. It's fast, sticks in your head. If you want something cloud, Workflowy might be good too. Without a product manager or scrum master…

I agree, for my open source it's based on what I need and I throw code in and out quite fast. I have a mental "list" of things that bother me so I try to do these when I have a moment. If I forget something in the list, it was never important by definition.

This is mostly for projects made for fun though, I would not recommend this for a startup-like solo dev.

Edit: I also do an overview from time to time of the projects as a whole and decide if a larger feature is important.

Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

#25

Post by [deleted] »

forgotmypw wrote: post #7

I have a file called todo.txt, with the current tasks at the top, and everything else below that. It is in version control. As I finish stuff, I delete it out of the file. I add new stuff towards the top if I want to do it soon, towards the bottom if I want to save it for later. For things which are just ideas, I have a second file called brainstorm.txt.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

#28

Post by jaequery »

I’ve tried almost every tools out there but for some reason the one that makes me the most productive is just a plain old pen and a notebook. It is what keeps me in line and focused.

I don’t even write much useful stuffs on it but it keeps me actively engaged on my tasks. So I just have it next to me at all times.

I don’t even look at previous pages so I tend to write what I need to be doing that day.

Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

#29

Post by bcrosby95 »

forgotmypw wrote: post #7

I have a file called todo.txt, with the current tasks at the top, and everything else below that. It is in version control. As I finish stuff, I delete it out of the file. I add new stuff towards the top if I want to do it soon, towards the bottom if I want to save it for later. For things which are just ideas, I have a second file called brainstorm.txt.

This is what I do too. I tried using things like Trello but found the friction to be too high. I use org mode instead of a regular .txt file though.

Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

#30

Post by Reedx »

forgotmypw wrote: post #7

I have a file called todo.txt, with the current tasks at the top, and everything else below that. It is in version control. As I finish stuff, I delete it out of the file. I add new stuff towards the top if I want to do it soon, towards the bottom if I want to save it for later. For things which are just ideas, I have a second file called brainstorm.txt.

Same here, though I handle the ordering loosely.

Basically bubble sorting the list frequently based largely on a combination of impact and what I feel like doing at the moment.

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