How to Tackle One-Day Projects Effectively

Yesterday, we talked about why one-day projects are awesome. Today, let’s cover how to tackle them.

Size. That’s the big secret. The only way to consistently deliver one-day projects is to make sure they fit within a single day’s work.

This requires breaking down larger tasks into a collection of smaller, manageable units. For example, I worked with a client who had acquired another company and needed to update their internal system to display prices in CAD, USD, and EUR as appropriate. The currency information was scattered throughout their entire system.

Here’s how we tackled it, one step at a time:

1. Introduced a new “Business Organization” concept to centralize business details like name, logo, etc.
2. Added relationships to other areas, such as employees and departments.
3. Updated invoices to display the correct currency.
4. And so on…

By completing and delivering these pieces one at a time, they could be used, tested, and approved along the way.

The only issue with this approach is that half-completed features could be accessed during the process. But that’s exactly what feature flags are for—more on that tomorrow!