From time to time, I check our Joel Score - partly because I see the need to improve on the topics listed there, partly because it reminds me why we do some things we do.
And today I can happily announce that we have a +1 on our score (yay!).
I give us a point on “up to date schedule”, now that we have a schedule for the next three months, visible to all team members.
We check our schedule weekly and keep the schedule up to date. The basic idea is that the further we look into the future, the more uncertain it is that we will keep it unchanged. At the same time, we check each topic scheduled if it’s worth implementing. This matches exactly what Joel Spolski has written about having an up to date schedule:
The other crucial thing about having a schedule is that it forces you to decide what features you are going to do, and then it forces you to pick the least important features and cut them rather than slipping into featuritis (a.k.a. scope creep).
+1 and we keep on improving!