Starting a Project

Use the planning workflow for current guidance. A project can start as a numbered record in the planning repository or an A10 / similar Google Doc. No duplicate record or Tao issue is required. Project creation is still evolving; content-production items have their own workflow under development.

Initiatives are different: they are enduring areas of work and their records are maintained in the planning repository. This page keeps an optional framing technique, not a separate project-registration process.

The approach: Working Backwards

One useful way to frame a project is a short PR/FAQ — a press release and optional FAQ. This comes from Amazon's "Working Backwards" process, where you start from the desired outcome and reason backwards to what needs to be built, rather than starting from what you can already do. It is optional, not an additional requirement on top of an A10 or project record.

The press release here is not a traditional marketing press release. It is a short internal document written as if the project is already complete and being announced — a forcing function that makes you articulate what you are actually trying to achieve before you start. If you cannot write a crisp press release, the idea needs more thinking first.

The FAQ is optional. It is useful for larger or more complex projects where stakeholders will have questions about feasibility, cost, risks, or how it fits the strategy. For small projects, skip it.

The goal is velocity over speed: a little thinking upfront prevents a lot of wasted building.

The template

If useful, copy this template into your chosen project document. The former instruction to open a proposal issue in Tao is deprecated.

## [Project name] — Proposal

**Owner**: [name]  
**Time budget**: [rough estimate — e.g. 2 weeks, 1 month, ongoing. this total time not calendar time]
**Start**: [start date]
**Launch**: [launch date, when does it "go live"]
**End**: [if different from launch e.g. if sharing afterwards]
**Supporting docs**: [link to any Drive folder, spec, or related material — leave blank if none]

### Press release

#### [Headline: what was built and for whom, in one sentence]

[Subheading: the specific benefit to the people it serves]

**Problem**: [One paragraph. What was broken, missing, or worth improving?
Why did it matter enough to act on?]

**Solution**: [One or two paragraphs written as if the project is complete.
What was built? How does it address the problem? What is different now?]

**What success looks like**: [Two or three specific, observable outcomes —
what will be true when this is done that is not true today?]

### FAQ (optional)

[Add questions and answers that stakeholders are likely to ask —
about feasibility, cost, risks, or strategic fit. Skip for small projects.]

Optional: add an SCQH

For larger or more ambiguous projects — especially where the why is not obvious from the press release — add a short Situation / Complication / Question / Hypothesis. Not required for most projects. If the press release already makes the motivation clear, skip it.

What happens next

Share the chosen document with the people involved and agree any needed commitment of shared resources. Track actions in the project's designated tracker; the document and tracker do not have to be in the same tool.

A small idea or task need not become a project: capture it in the relevant tracker without creating another queue here.