Overview
The GIST acronym is a popular approach to planning used to maintain alignment with organizational objectives.
There are four parts in GIST that a product manager must work through in order:
1. Goals — the top-level objective/vision for a company
2. Ideas — potential ways to achieve said goals
3. Step-Projects — a term that means 10-week-maximum experiments that constitute the larger project at hand
4. Tasks — product features & enhancements that constitute progress on the step-projects
Product managers that use GIST will find they can pivot easier, and prioritize existing items more frequently with ongoing feedback from step-project experiments. GIST also encourages critical evaluation, allowing teams to constantly check an idea’s efficacy before getting to late-stage development.
