timeline-and-project

Timeline & Project Plan

Translate an idea + dev spec into an executable project plan with honest durations.

Steps

1. Read the idea, dev spec (or hardware feasibility), assumptions output.
2. Define the target milestone — typically "first paying customer" for B2C/B2B SaaS, "first pilot deployment" for hardware/enterprise, "first 1000 active users" for consumer.
3. Lay out the path as a sequence of milestones, e.g.:
   • M1: validate top assumption (week 1–2)
   • M2: MVP feature-complete in dev (week 3–8)
   • M3: closed beta with N users (week 9–12)
   • M4: paid launch (week 13–16) For each milestone: deliverables, exit criteria, dependencies.
4. Identify the critical path — what blocks each milestone. Call out any single-threaded bottleneck.
5. Identify parallelisable workstreams — branding/positioning, customer development, partnership conversations, regulatory prep — that can run alongside engineering.
6. Note decision gates — points where the user should re-evaluate continuing (e.g. after M1: did the assumption validate? if not, kill or pivot).

Output

<workspace_path>/ideas/<slug>/analysis/timeline-and-project.md with frontmatter:

---
lens: timeline-and-project
generated: YYYY-MM-DD
target_milestone: <text>
target_weeks: <number>
critical_path: <short summary>
---

Notes

• Be honest about durations. Solo founder building part-time goes 3-5x slower than a funded team.
• Always include a kill criterion. Plans without a kill criterion become endless.