The development plan breaks down the necessary work into tasks that can be assigned to individual team members in focused sprints. Therefore, a task management tool like Jira is often used in favor of a document-based plan.
If you have a task management tool readily available, start using it already in the idea development stage.
Task management tools like Jira often offer various types of items, for example epics, stories, tasks and bugs. I suggest you use them in an atypical but very practical way:
- Epic
Use epics to represent building blocks.
- Task
Tasks represent actual assignable work, often contributing to specific epics.
- Story
Use stories to represent scenarios you plan to demonstrate and test at the end of each sprint.
- Bug
Tracks bugs found when demoing or testing stories.
As soon as the work begins, people will start discussing development tasks in emails, chats, phone calls, in the office space and in meetings, which leads to loss of control over the information flow and the development as a whole.
Instill a practice of using the chosen task management tool to discuss and communicate decisions and ensure everyone with stakes in the project has access to the tool and knows how to use it.