Core Ideas
NUU Operations is a delivery graph. You need a small set of nouns to use it. Each noun below is one thing. Do not treat two of them as the same thing.
The nouns
Workspace. A workspace is the place you work. It is either personal, or it is an organisation you belong to. See About Workspaces.
Project. A project is the top container in a workspace. It holds deliverables and a project backlog.
Deliverable. A deliverable is a scoped chunk of work inside a project. Its state comes from its subsections, not from a manual status you type in. See About Deliverables.
Subsection. A subsection is one node in the delivery graph. Tasks live in it. A subsection can depend on other subsections. A subsection is ready, in progress, blocked, or done.
Closer. The closer is the last subsection of a deliverable. Every deliverable has exactly one. Completing the closer completes the deliverable.
Task. A task is one unit of work. It can sit in the master backlog, in a project backlog, or in a subsection. It has a state of to do, doing, or done. See About Tasks and Backlogs.
Backlog. A backlog is a holding place for tasks that are not yet in a subsection. There is one master backlog for the workspace. Each project also has its own backlog.
Calendar. The calendar is a time view of the active workspace. It shows open deadlines. It also holds day labels, which are banners across one or more days.
Map. The map is a picture of the organisation delivery graph. It shows deliverables as blocks. It shows subsections and the links between them.
Plan. A plan is a shared, left-to-right graph of steps. Many plans can exist at once. A plan answers what is workable now across projects.
Strike. A strike is a personal target. Strikes are yours. They are not shared with a team. See Run Your Day with Strikes.
Deadline. A deadline owns a date. It can stand alone, or it can attach to one or more records. A record does not own its due date. The earliest attached deadline is that date.
Activity. Activity is the feed of what changed in the active workspace. It names people and the records they touched.
How the nouns relate
A workspace contains projects. A project contains deliverables. A deliverable contains subsections. One of those subsections is the closer.
Tasks move between backlogs and subsections. When a task sits in a subsection, it is committed work. When it sits in a backlog, it is not yet committed.
Deadlines attach to projects, deliverables, subsections, tasks, and plan steps. The calendar plots those dates. The personal deadline view shows dates from every organisation you belong to.
Plans and the map both read the same delivery records. They do not replace the subsection graph. They are other views of work.
Strikes sit beside this graph. You can use a strike to run your own day. You do not need a strike to deliver a project.
Notifications and the changelog sit beside the graph too. Notifications tell you about assignments, moves, comments, and due dates. The changelog tells you what is new in the product.
Status that the service derives
You do not set deliverable status by hand. The service derives it.
- A subsection is done when every task in it is done.
- A subsection is blocked when a subsection it depends on is not done.
- A deliverable is completed when its closer is completed.
This is why the closer matters. The closer is the gate. Work above it can be done. The deliverable is not delivered until the closer is done.