The Flywheel / Development / 05 Blueprints
Blueprints
Figure out what you're going to build before you build it, in small chunks.
The tool for this step
The Sketchbook
Draw it before you build it. Figure out what you're going to build before you build it: the whole thing, cut into small chunks that can each change on their own.
What it is
Blueprints figures out what you are going to build before you build it. Before you build a house, you draw it: the whole thing, its floor plan, its rooms, how they connect, what it stands on, and the order it goes up in.
Here the rooms are chunks: small parts a person in the journey can touch, small enough to build in days, each able to change or be dropped without breaking the others. Fluidity is the number of things allowed to move on their own.
How to run it
What you produce
The Sketchbook: draw it before you build it. Figure out what you're going to build before you build it: the whole thing, cut into small chunks that can each change on their own.
Examples
The monthly letter, drawn
The journey cut into chunks: the writing, the paper and printing, the collectible sticker, and the subscription. Each can change without the others. The sticker has to prove it brings people back the next month, or it goes.
Where it goes wrong
- A feature list with a new nameIf the plan reads like a backlog, the journey has been lost. Every chunk traces back to a moment.
- Chunks too bigIf a chunk takes months, it isn't a chunk. Cut it again.
- Welded chunksChunks that can only ship together will only ever fail together.
- Demolishing to rebuildRebuilding what you already have costs quarters. Rearranging it costs weeks.
What it hands on
The Canvas designs each chunk, and the Foundry builds them, in the order written here.