(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)
I’ve been thinking of how I organize my projects and share them with you my audience and friends. I’ve not been thrilled with how I’ve done updates, and recent spates of illness and surprises derailed a few things. So what I’m doing is taking my projects to be managed much more traditional Scrum style. I got the idea here from Failbetter’s use of Agile to make them publicly engaged via blogposts while doing Sunless Skies.
If you’re not familiar with Scrum,, its basically a method of organization where you A) keep a backlog of stuff to do B) do it in small increments called sprints, and C) regularly report and measure progress. I recommend reading up on it.
(I’m still big on the Getting Things Done method, and will use it as part of my work, but my large amount of longer-term projects require some different approaches plus this lets me try out techniques from work.)
What this means for you is
- Every month (a “sprint”) I’ll tell you what I’m planning to tackle on my projects. Most Sprints are two weeks, but I plan my projects quarterly/monthly so this is a bit easier.
- I’ll do weekly reports (a sort of Standup) on progress. These are usually daily in proper Scrum, but I have my limits.
- I’ll do a roundup/retrospective at the end.
So what’s up for April!
Finishing The Color Generator: I’ll finish the Color Generator in April with the goal of deploying before the end of the Month – preferably mid-month. I’ll be regularly updating it with new data so keep an eye out.
New Seventh Sanctum Spotlight: A new Seventh Sanctum project to spotlight talent and interesting media – this is an experiment and may or may not succeed.
Way With Worlds Minibooks #1: The followups to Way With Worlds. I will send this to editor – remember these don’t launch until June.
Way With Worlds Minibook #5: Get this to at least 60% completion if not more. And, yes I have four of these suckers written already – make room in your summer reading!
There are also some marketing efforts, tech purchases, and home maintenance but I don’t think you care about those.
So I’ll be posting updates weekly (probably Monday) to let you know where everything is once a week!
And as it’s Sunday, let’s get to a status!
What I’ve worked on:
- Wrote 5 more questions on Minibook 5.
- Minibook #1 will be in the hands of the editor next week.
- Reached out to initial “promotables” for the Sanctum Spotlight and designed how it’ll run. It’s pretty much ready to go, I’ll start it later this month.
- A few notes on the Color Generator are in place, I’ll dive into that more soon.
What’s coming up this week:
- I plan to focus on the Color Generator to get as much done as possible.
- I’ll be attending two professional events, so that consumes time.
– Steve
