Planning for the Build, Like Any Good Mountain Climber
By Simon 8 years ago
Have you heard the song Mountain at my Gates by Foals?
If not, it’s a good’un:
The song talks about a large looming mountain that intimidates the lead singer. He doesn’t know whether to approach it or run away. When building any project, I liken it to this situation. (Some of the developers I have mentored/taught will laugh as they read this as I use this metaphor often to break down how I approach projects).
Suppose someone came up to you and said: “Hey buddy, see Everest over there? Yeah, well, go climb it right now with no history of climbing”.
You would simply balk at the huge task ahead of you. Climbing thousands of feet into the atmosphere? No, thank you. There isn’t a person alive who just start to climb a mountain without preparing first. On top of needing plenty of experience in traversing mountains, months of planning and provision is required.
So, we, too must look at any project as a mountain, and apply these same principles. We must have experience before we can begin. If not, we must gain the necessary knowledge to compensate.
With climbing a mountain or with any other big plan, it’s important to break it down into smaller and smaller chunks – for example, day by day. This is what a plan for the first day of climbing a mountain would look like:
- 9am - we get up, eat breakfast and pack up camp
- 10am - we depart for first climb
- Midday - we eat and rest for an hour
- 1pm - we walk till next break
- 3pm – break
- 4pm - walk till night fall
- nightfall - set up camp, eat, then sleep early
Our plan for building GuruuMee looks very similar, with plenty of smaller tasks that get us closer and closer to our goal of finishing the app. This breakdown and careful planning means that rather than focusing on this great, big, imposing monster of a mountain, we focus on the smaller, less intimidating steps along the way. This gives us confidence that we can indeed traverse the mountain at my gates.
-- Quinn, The Developer