convergent-planning
Convergent Planning
A plan is not a list of things to do. It is a sequence of points at which the number of ways the work could still go down gets smaller.
Most plans fail not because a step was wrong but because nothing between the steps was capable of saying so. The work proceeds, the ambiguity is carried forward untouched, and it resolves at the end — all at once, in whatever direction it happens to fall.
One operation: find where the plan is uncertain, and put a checkable state at each place the uncertainty ends.
What the steps are made of
A step is not a unit of effort. It is a unit of ambiguity removed. Ask of each one: what was unknown before this, and known after?
If the answer is "nothing" — the step is typing. Merge it into its neighbour. Steps that only move work forward without resolving anything belong inside a checkpoint, not between them.
If the answer is "several things" — the step is too big. Not because it is long, but because when it fails, it will not say which of the several things was wrong.
The good size is one question per step. Then a failure is a diagnosis.