We have just introduced a project symnbol for the project I am working on. Several releases following another, a software project based on the water fall and SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) principal.

To show the complexity we are dealing with in our release and what the following releases have to deal with, we have chosen the Rubik’s Cube. But not the 3×3x3 Rubik’s but the 2×2x2, which is a pretty simple one, representing the functionality we have to put in place. The following releases have to build upon of us and are embedding more complex datamodels and functionality that has to integrate with various subsystems. So the following phases each get a layer more. As the most complex cube is the 7×7x7 and we have more releases than that, we had to go for even more complex models up to the 12 sided 5×5x5 Gigamix which is currently the most complex one we found.

How ever, you could argue that a Rubik’s Cube is not complex just complicated, it is a great symbol to raise awareness to team about the beast we are dealing with.

As there are various options and variations of the Rubik’s Cube approach (see the picture below, thanks to Gerwin Sturm from Scarygami) it has great potential for many releases to come.

What kind of project symbols are you using in your projects?