Starting a New Project

While a new project is usually an exciting event, there is always some uncertainty regarding what to do next and how to set things in motion. The following content details each step required to get a new project up and running.

Communication Channels

First things first: how to communicate with the team and with the client?

We rely on two primary communication channels:

Slack, for live conversation needs, Emails, for the less urgent, asynchronous stuff.

We have an entire section dedicated to how we manage communications at Minnek, and you can learn more by reading our communication guidelines.

Back to our new project.

Slack Channels

You can check out our Slack communication guidelines in the communication page.

All client-specific Slack channels are private.

Shared Slack Channels

If the client is also using Slack, our preferred setup is using Slack’s shared channels. Shared channels have the significant advantage of leaving the users’ management to each party. Minnek can manage their channel members, and the client can manage their own channel members.

Scheduling Rituals

We believe that communication is key to building a successful product. As part of this belief, we follow two of the four well-known Scrum ceremonies: Sprint Planning and Iteration Review.

We have a company-wide daily stand-up. It is not mentioned in this section because it’s not project-specific and, regardless of assignment, all team members take part in the daily stand-up.

We choose not to hold a per-project retrospective for the sake of efficiency (to reduce the number of meetings) and because we have a Chapter Retrospective every four weeks.

For the two ceremonies that we follow, the Product Manager will schedule them both as recurring events when the project starts.

Sprint Planning

• Guide to Sprint Planning

Interaction Review (Client Calls)

The iteration review meetings occur once per sprint. They should always happen on the same day of the week as it helps to make it a habit.

Goals:

• Reviewing the last iteration’s progress
• Demonstrating the implemented features to the client
• Aligning the next priorities with the client
• Duration: 1 hour
• Parties involved: Client, Product Manager

The sprint planning meeting and the iteration review meeting are often combined into one session only. Going this way will depend on the project and is at the discretion of the Product Manager.