gist-plan

name	gist-plan
description	GIST planning workflow. Structure goals into ideas, steps, and tasks using Gilad's evidence-guided framework.

GIST Planning

Replace opinion-based roadmaps with evidence-guided planning. Source: Gilad (Evidence Guided).

Workflow

1. Set Goals (Quarterly)

• Derive from North Star input metrics or OKRs
• Format: "Improve [metric] from [current] to [target] by [date]"
• Maximum 3 goals per quarter
• Update canvas/gist.yml goals section

2. Generate Ideas (Ongoing)

• Ideas are hypothetical ways to achieve goals
• Most ideas fail (>80%) -- this is expected and planned for
• Generate many, hold loosely
• Store in canvas/gist.yml idea bank with ICE scores
• Never commit to an idea until evidence supports it

3. Score with ICE + Confidence Meter

Use /ice-score to prioritize. Key insight from Gilad:

• Confidence is NOT gut feel -- it maps to evidence levels
• 0.1 = opinion only | 0.5 = data supports | 0.7 = tested | 0.9 = launched
• Rescore after every experiment

4. Design Steps (per top idea)

• Steps are small, time-boxed activities that build evidence
• Each step has: hypothesis, method, success criteria
• Steps follow a confidence ladder: assessment -> exploratory experiment -> feature experiment -> launch
• Each step produces evidence that increases or decreases confidence
• If evidence is negative: pivot or kill the idea (sunk cost is irrelevant)

5. Execute Tasks (Sprint-level)

• Tasks belong to the CURRENT step only
• Don't plan tasks for future steps
• Standard agile execution

6. Reprioritize (Continuous)

After each step completes:

• Update ICE scores based on new evidence
• Re-rank ideas
• Kill ideas below threshold
• Surface new ideas from discovery work

Anti-Pattern: The Feature Roadmap

If your GIST board looks like a feature list with dates, you're doing it wrong. Goals are outcomes, ideas are hypotheses, steps are experiments.