Twigflo mission diagrams
Twigflo's mission diagram is the backbone to it's goal-driven OS. The tree-like structure clearly displays all dependencies that exist within your project. Each task within the diagram has a parent-child relationship ensuring that the work done contributes to the overall outcome.

As opposed to starting with the current state, Twigflo asks that you and your team to look into the future and specify the desired state - which is simply what you want to have achieved by the end of the project. By defining the desired state, your team can actively align and assess the effort needed to achieve it. Doing so ensures that all steps of the diagram lead toward that objective while keeping everyone motivated.
Build a mission
Start with determining what your desired state is.

For example, an IT consulting team is asked by a client to transform compliance reports currently housed in spreadsheets to a modern business intelligence tool. The project's desired state, called "objective" in Twigflo, might be "Convert current compliance Excel reports to a consolidated Power BI report".
Once an objective is declared, begin to break it down.

Sticking with our current IT consulting example, we might decide that the steps that occur before delivering this project include publishing the reports and sending out correspondence to our intended audience.
Continue breaking down each step until you arrive to the current state.
Dependent vs parallel
Baking in dependencies is essential to building an effective mission diagram. Similarly, tasks that can be done in parallel should be depicted as so.
Dependent
Mission diagrams are made up of a series of parent-child relationships. These relationships illustrate the dependencies that exist within a given project.

There are three types of dependency structures:

Dependency
Structure

Description

one-to-one
A single task is dependent on the completion of another single task upstream.

For example, Task A needs to be completed before the start of Task B.
one-to-many
Multiple tasks are dependent on the completion of a single task upstream.

For example, Task A needs to be completed before the start of Tasks B, C, and D.
many-to-one
A single task is dependent on the completion of a multiple tasks upstream.

For example, Tasks A, B, C need to be completed before the start of Tasks A.
Parallel
Mission diagrams allow for teams to execute tasks simultaneously. Rather than creating a linear mission with each step being a bottleneck for the next, bake in areas where many tasks can be done at the same time. Read about mission shapes in ourblog post "What's the Shape of Your Mission?".
Effort type
By default, all tasks are categorized as "unassessed." Once you and your team have evaluated the impact and amount of time needed to perform the task, you can change it to one of the other options. Numerical definitions for each effort type are agreed upon by the project team.

It’s best to work out effort types with your team after diagramming, in part, because the effort depends on the person doing the work and the distraction can siphon momentum from the big picture.

You can choose from one of the five different effort types:

Effort type

Description

Unassessed
Effort has yet to be assessed. (default)
Small
A task labeled as "small" is expected to be low effort (e.g. 1 day).
Medium
A task labeled as "medium" is expected to be medium effort (e.g. 3 day).
Giant
A task labeled as "giant" is expected to be high effort (e.g. 1 week).
External
External effort types should be used when linking to another mission. You can choose from the missions in your current team to link to.
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