Most people agree that it is a good thing to split a software development project into many small tasks each of which can be implemented within a few hours. But the finer the granularity, the more total effort has to be put into defining the exact scopes of all the individual tasks in order to avoid gaps or overlap.My question is not about how to break down a complex system but on how to document the result once you have done it: How can we clearly define the scope of a task so that a developer to which it is assigned will neither implement too little nor too much?I am aware that the scope of my question is rather broad but I hope that there are some general strategies, guidelines or best practices. I have been searching for information about this topic for quite a while now but am not happy with what I found so far.I believe that agile practices help to reduce the impact of ambiguous task definitions but do not address the issue itself.
What techniques can be used to clearly define the scope of a development task or work package?
project management;specifications;task