Planning & prioritization

Purpose

Provide a consistent path from product intent to an executable engineering plan.

Project intake

• Projects start as a Linear Project.
• Projects may be created and prioritized by product teams, engineering leadership, or the designated project owner.

Work breakdown

• Use issues and milestones; the project itself is the deliverable.
• Issues must include scope, priority, and a Type label.
• Engineers should create their own issues when possible.

Ready to start

Work is ready when:

• The Linear Project is planned and scoped in detail.
• Issues are created, labeled, and estimated.
• Dependencies are identified and scheduled.

Done

Work is done when:

• All issues are completed and reviewed.
• The project status is updated and closed in Linear.

Prioritization cadence

• Prioritization is reviewed weekly.
• Project status and progress should be updated in Linear (Pulse).

Cycles and estimates

• Cycles are 2 weeks with no cooldown.
• Planning/review/retro cadence is weekly.
• Estimates use the Fibonacci scale (1-8).

Unplanned work

• Adjust scope estimates or completion dates as early as possible.
• Move issues to later cycles when needed.
• Communicate changes through Linear project updates.