Christy Chafee, Cloud Product Manager, delivered a session for NASA Space Apps Hackathon participants on how to break down project scope effectively for the 48-hour virtual event.
She covered agile best practices for scope breakdown, including defining goals, epics, user stories, and tasks to ensure alignment and efficiency.
The session emphasized the importance of early and detailed planning, collaboration, and effective use of virtual tools.
Action Items
Before hackathon – All team members: Collaborate to clearly define and detail the project goal.
Before hackathon – All team members: Identify and plan approximately 70% of the work before development starts.
Before hackathon – All team members: Set up virtual collaboration tools (chat rooms, virtual whiteboards, Kanban board).
Before development – All team members: Break down the project into epics, user stories, and technical tasks, ensuring sufficient detail at each level.
Before development – Team leads: Review user stories as a group to capture questions and refinements before starting technical work.
During hackathon – All team members: Actively use the Kanban board to track work status and avoid multitasking.
Breaking Down Project Scope for the Hackathon
All team members should participate in scope definition to ensure alignment on goals and understanding of what needs to be accomplished.
The project should be structured into four work types: goals, epics, user stories, and tasks, each becoming increasingly detailed.
Finalize a clear, specific goal that integrates all requirements and details relevant to the challenge.
Epics should represent major value streams or features (e.g., UI/UX, integration, AI), and should capture functional/non-functional requirements, customer journeys, and required skills.
User stories should be granular, following the format: "As a [user], I want to [do something] so that [desired outcome]," and should be grouped under appropriate epics.
Technical tasks should list all necessary implementation details and be reviewed collaboratively with engineering leads to ensure completeness.
Agile Planning and Collaboration Tools
Use available virtual collaboration platforms (chat, whiteboards, sticky notes if needed) to facilitate teamwork.
Establish a Kanban board to visualize project progress in three stages: open, in progress, and done.
Minimize multitasking by limiting the number of stories in progress and prioritizing tasks as deadlines approach.
Ensure all task requirements are well documented to enable team members with the right skills to pick up tasks independently.
Decisions
Scope breakdown will be structured as goals → epics → user stories → tasks — to ensure clarity, alignment, and effective execution during the time-constrained virtual hackathon.
Kanban board will be the central work-tracking tool — to provide transparency and facilitate smooth collaboration.
Open Questions / Follow-Ups
Are there any preferred virtual whiteboard or Kanban tools recommended by the organizers?
Will there be any checkpoints or team syncs during the hackathon to reassess priorities?