Tē tōia, tē haumatia
Nothing can be achieved without a plan, workforce and way of doing things
Project management helps you organise your development work so you know what to do, what you are working on, and what still needs to be finished.
During development, you will use a project management board to break your work into smaller tasks and track your progress.
Without a clear plan, projects can often:
run out of time
become rushed at the end
miss important features
have less time for testing and improvements
As you work, you move each task across the board. This helps you stay organised and makes it easier to see what still needs to be done.
During development, you will build your outcome in stages called sprints.
A sprint is a short block of time where you focus on making part of your project, testing it, and improving it.
Instead of trying to make everything at once, you will:
choose the most important tasks first
build a basic working version
test that it works
use feedback to make improvements
add more features as your project develops
Each sprint helps you move from:
a basic working version
→ to a more complete version
→ to a polished final outcome
Using sprints helps you stay organised, make steady progress, and leave time to test and improve your work.
Each stage builds on the previous one, helping you move from an idea to a finished, high-quality outcome.
You will work through 3 stages:
Development Sprint 1 (MVP) – make it work
Development Sprint 2 (MMP) – make it look and feel right
Development Sprint 3 (MAP) – polish and refine
Each sprint will be 4 weeks long and should have specific goals that need be implemented. If features are not on track then they may need to be scrapped or revised.
At which stage do you think most mistakes happen? Why?
Make it work
Build the core functionality
Create a working structure
Add placeholder content if needed
Test basic functionality
Focus on making the core features work before worrying about how it looks.
Goal: it works (even if it looks basic)
Make it look and feel right
Add real content and assets
Improve how it looks and feels (design and aesthetics)
Refine usability
Continue testing
Goal: it works and looks like your intended product
Make it high quality
Add extras and polish
Fix small issues
Improve details
Final testing
Goal: a finished, high-quality product
Each sprint will be four weeks. You will use your board to manage your development work.
Plan - choose the tasks for the sprint
Build - create or code part of your outcome
Test - check that it works properly
Feedback - ask someone to try it or review it
Improve - fix problems and make changes
Document - take screenshots and explain your progress
At the end of each sprint, your board should show what is finished, what is still being worked on, and what needs to happen next.
Trello is the project management tool we will use for this course. It is a simple visual board that helps you plan tasks, track progress, and manage each sprint.
You will use your Trello board to:
▪ organise your development tasks
▪ choose what to work on next
▪ move tasks through each stage of the sprint
▪ track your progress over time
▪ collect screenshots as evidence of your planning and development
Good project management also means keeping your files organised, naming your work clearly, and saving backup versions.
You will use Trello (or another project management tool) to set up and manage your Development board
If you have an account Log in, or sign up. If your school account is Google then you can sign up easily.
Note: if you are working in a group one of you sets this up and then shares with the other group members.
In Trello, click the 'Create' button to set up your workspace and Development Board.
Board Title: Development
Workspace: Y11 DT or whatever your course is e.g 11 Product, 11DTT etc
Visibility: you choose
It will then open up your Developement Board.
Set up the following 5 coulmns:
All Tasks (To do)
Ready / Next up
Doing
Testing / Review
Done
At the start of development, you will break your work into small tasks and add them to the All Tasks.
Use labels such as:
MVP
MMP
MAP
Functionality
Content
Aesthetics
Polish
At the start of each sprint, move tasks into Ready / Next up based on your priorities.
You should be actively moving your cards across the board to show your progress.
✅ tasks are clearly named
✅ cards are moved regularly
✅ priorities are clear
✅ completed work is shown in “Done”