No, you don’t get to skip project planning. Brooke needs to know approximate cost and delivery date, and poor Padma need to know when the good stuff will start showing up. You yourself need to know dependencies and delays.

This is the shortest, fastest, easiest way I know to create a project plan. It’s full name is “Project Planning Jam Session”, to indicate that all roles are present for the session, from sponsor to business person to designers and testers. Thanks to Jens Coldewey for first showing this to me in 1998 – it instantly improved the way our teams developed project plans.