To me this seems less like planning and more like task tracking. Everybody alread knows / has decided what the task they had to perform on each day so it was a simple matter of executing and recording the results. The hard part of planning - breaking the problems into small tasks and deciding the order of execution based on dependencies, deciding whether something is even worth doing, etc. was only summarily covered.
Part of the "secret sauce" of Agile software development is that Agile teams micro-manage themselves. I love Agile. I hate micro-management. Hey Alistair, isn't that a logical absurdity?<p>Not really. Let me explain.<p>I love to work with Agile teams that are responsible and accountable for what they do. The best way I know to do this is to check-in with the team everyday and talk about we're going to get done today. Of course, this has to be done in the context of some vision or plan that has a horizon greater than a single day.<p>I hate it when someone who doesn't really understand the tasks tells me what I'm going to do today and wonders why I didn't do something yesterday. I hate that kind of micro-management.<p>So, everyday I take responsibility for my tasks and hold myself accountable to my team. I don't let someone else be responsible and then hold me accountable.
It's an interesting workflow, but I think the granularity they are suggesting feels a little too micro-management like.<p>If you need to track whether your (presumably non-tech) employees have written 3 emails, your team have a motivation/time-management problem.
Isn't this basically how Scrum works in agile development?<p>We're doing this at work and include our direct client contacts as well (daily 15 minute conference call). It helps immensely in avoiding communication issues arising from different time zones, locations and people never having worked with each other.
A web app like <a href="http://teuxdeux.com" rel="nofollow">http://teuxdeux.com</a> with a color coded feature and team accounts would compliment this approach.