In an attempt to keep the development project I’m working on from getting bogged down, I’ve setup milestones that are between four weeks and one week long. (This organization, like most others, does not have a history of finishing software on time. Feature creep is a big problem. In my young, naive thinking, I’m trying to give us deadlines often enough that we can are forced to just do the most valuable parts of things, and not begin endlessly wandering around adding features, and rediscussing already discussed things.)

We nailed the first milestone. We did exactly what we needed to, no extra fluff, exactly on time. But I’m a little behind on the second milestone. Today I realized the difference between the two. Last time I semi-accidently made daily milestones to reach our big milestone. This I did not.

With the micro-milestones(AKA Inch pebbles ), I could instantly see if we were getting behind schedule, and more importantly be working on important things and not go wandering into the bushes.

Monday morning, we are having inch pebbles again. Lesson One: Learned.