The toughest hurdle in building a 0‑to‑1 project: effective decomposition and team division

When starting a brand‑new project from zero, the author faced the challenge of replacing an outsourced procurement system with a self‑built inventory‑management solution that covers store ordering, receiving, returns, and supplier shipping.

The first and most critical step is to understand the core business processes and identify the essential modules; lacking a product manager, the author had to perform this analysis personally.

He warns against jumping straight into coding. Proper system and module partitioning is essential; a poor split leads to chaotic requirement iterations later.

Effective communication with anyone who understands the business—product managers or domain experts—is necessary to capture the core user‑case flow and the nodes it passes through. Once these cases are documented, architecture design can begin.

Based on his analysis, the author divided the project into three core microservices:

Inventory system: manages all store inventory and transaction logs, integrates with external ERP systems such as Yonyou and Kingdee, and serves as the key link for finance and supply‑chain operations.

Product system: handles materials, semi‑finished goods, and finished products.

Stock (进销存) system: records every store‑level inbound, outbound, and inventory adjustment action.

Each service was built as an independent microservice, keeping the overall system simple.

After the decomposition, the author assigned each colleague a specific system—colleague A took the inventory service, colleague B the product service, and the author the stock service. Each team member produced an architecture design and detailed technical plan, which the author reviewed before development began.

For project management, he recommends focusing only on the major milestones. When a milestone approaches, check the team’s progress, address issues promptly, and provide guidance, but avoid spending excessive time on management because the manager also needs to code. Controlling these key nodes prevents the project from spiraling out of control and satisfies leadership’s need for clear progress reports.