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I watched the french film Irréversible (2002) some years ago. One thing I remember is that its whole film was shot with only a three-page draft as a storyline.

Every conversation was improvised as the scenes were shot. I like it that the film evolved not according to a detailed plan, but in a general direction and listening to its actors and scenes as the shooting progressed.

Building Teambox has been, in a way, very similar. We knew in which direction the product should go: Teambox should be a project manager that people actually use.

So we wrote this diagram with all the pages or elements that need to be there.

Everything that needs to be done is in this diagram. It’s not a block diagram of the application, or the database model. It’s a representation of interface. It includes the product site, the blog, community sites and support. I rarely see those on other app’s plannings.

Every time something’s blue, it means it’s “done done“: Working and with tests for it. We’re now 75% done with the app, and still working on the product site and CRM.

While we advance towards full blueness, we follow this cycle:

• Answer support requests from users, and learn their needs.
• Create tasks on Teambox for features or ideas.
• Take a look at the project wall on Teambox to see what others have been doing.
• Choose a feature, sorted by priority, work on it and push it to the server.
• When everything’s ready, we can choose a new box from the diagram!

Filing stuff as tasks to review later helps keeping mind and inbox clear!