One project per job: how we run a company as parallel projects in harnsy

October 13, 20265 min readPavel Buchnev

When one project holds everything, every decision waits in the same line. We run harnsy as several projects, one per kind of job: the product, the website, marketing and social media. Each has its own lead and its own team of AI agents, and they work at the same time. Here is how the split looks, how work crosses from one project to another, and what it costs.

October 13, 20265 min readPavel Buchnev

Key points

4: projects, each with its own lead and its own team: product, website, social media, marketing
4: real handoffs between projects, each a linked pair of work items
11 Oct: the day marketing was split off with one question: who answers for what?
2nd: project and every later one need a harnsy Max key

In this article

The rule: one project, one kind of job
How the split happened
Work that crosses projects
What the human sees
What got better, what got worse
Do it in your own company
Editions

The rule: one project, one kind of job

A project in harnsy is a folder of work with its own team of roles, its own board and its own lead. The rule we follow is simple: if a job has a different owner, a different pace or a different kind of result, it gets its own project.

Ours, as kinds of projects:

Product. The harnsy app itself. Its team holds developers, a reviewer, UX, security and docs.
Website. The public site and its blog. Lead, copywriter, designer, frontend, DevOps, SEO, legal, editor and others.
Social media. What we publish on social networks. Lead, strategist, copywriter, visual designer, fact checker, editor and others.
Marketing. Set up on 11 October. It decides what to promote and where: strategy, research on how others promote, the tagging scheme for links.

How the split happened

On 11 October the human split marketing off with one question to answer: who answers for what? Marketing decides what to promote and where. The website and social media carry out its plan. Social media writes and prepares publications. Videos are scripted and shot on the website team, and published by social media. Work already started finishes where it started.

Before that, the same questions were settled inside one project. We do not have a number for how much that cost, so we will not give one.

Work that crosses projects

A lead messages the other lead. Each side records its own work item. The two items are linked with “blocked by”, across projects, so a chain on the board shows what led to what. Four real handoffs:

The coffee-shop video (on LinkedIn). The website team wrote the script, built the recording kit, shot and edited. The product team gave a local build of the next version within hours. The social media team wrote the texts, cut short clips and published. On the evening of the shoot, the texts and clips were ready too.
Product to social media. Every feature that ships and that users can see arrives as a notice and becomes a parked "post about it" item. The human switches it on when he wants it.
Social media to website. Social media asks for a blog article, the website team writes it, social media promotes it once it is out. This article went that way.
Marketing to the rest. The tagging scheme and its register come from marketing. Questions about positioning go to marketing and the website team.

The humanTalks to one lead per project. Decides when two leads cannot agree.

ProductThe harnsy app itselfLeadTeamdevelopers, reviewer, UX, security, docs
WebsiteThe public site and its blogLeadTeamcopywriter, designer, frontend, DevOps, SEO, legal, editor and others
Social mediaWhat we publish on social networksLeadTeamstrategist, copywriter, visual designer, fact checker, editor and others
MarketingWhat to promote and where: strategy, research, link tagging. Since 11 OctoberLeadTeamits own team

1The coffee-shop video
Product → Website: a local build of the next version, within hours
Website → Social: script, recording kit, shoot, edit; social writes the texts, cuts clips and publishes
2Feature notices
Product → Social: a visible feature ships and becomes a parked “post about it” item; the human switches it on
3A blog article (this one)
Social → Website: asks for an article
Website → Social: writes it; social promotes it once it is out
4Marketing’s plan
Marketing → Website, Social: what to promote and where, the tagging scheme for links; the two carry it out

How work crosses projects

Each side records its own item. The two items are linked “blocked by”, so the chain on the board shows what led to what.

Schematic. Our four projects, each with its lead and team, and the four hand-offs between them, as of 12 October 2026.

When ownership is unclear, the two leads settle it. When they cannot, the human decides. The 11 October split came from that.

LeadLead“Whose job is this?”
The two leads settle itlead to lead
if they cannot
The human decidesThe 11 October split of marketing came this way

Schematic. Who decides when ownership is unclear.

What the human sees

One lead per project. A question reaches him as one question with options, and it shows on Home as waiting for him. His accept or return sits on the item card. An all-projects summary shows open, in-work, waiting-for-you and stale work for every project on one screen. We have not measured how many decisions land on him per week, so there is no number here.

What got better, what got worse

Better:

Work runs in parallel. On the day of the video, the website team shot and edited while the social media team had its texts and clips ready the same evening.
Each lead knows what it owns, so fewer questions go up to the human to find the owner.

Worse:

More handoffs. Leads write to each other more than before.
A queue builds up of items that wait for the human's review across projects.
Agents cost budget. Seats are filled only when there is work, and an idle seat is released and reopened for the next task.

Do it in your own company

List your jobs, and name one owner for each.
Make a project for each job that has its own pace or its own result. Keep a small job inside the project it serves.
Give each project a lead. Staff it with roles for the job, and seat agents when there is work.
Write the crossing rule down: lead to lead, one item on each side, linked with "blocked by".
Decide who breaks ties. In our case that is the human.
Check once a week which project's queue is the longest, and move work, not people, to fix it.

A suggestion, not our setup: a finance project fits the same rule. It has an owner, a pace (month-end) and a result of its own.

Editions

Free harnsy holds one organization with 2 projects. More projects need a harnsy Max key.

Projects for each job

harnsy connects your Claude Code, Codex and OpenCode agents into teams with roles and a lead. The second project and later ones come with a harnsy Max key.

Install harnsy

harnsy is not affiliated with Anthropic, OpenAI or OpenCode; their names are theirs.