3.3 Decomposing the work

A project task should usually be small enough to assign, estimate, review, and complete within a few hours or a short working session. Tasks that remain too large should be divided again.

Each task should answer five questions:

1. Output: What observable product will exist when the task is complete?
2. Owner: Who is primarily responsible for completing it?
3. Dependency: What must be available first?
4. Reviewer: Who will check the work?
5. Definition of done: What conditions must be satisfied before the team accepts it?

Ownership does not mean that one person works without input. It means the team knows who is responsible for moving the task forward and reporting when it is ready for review.