Shape Up Abridged

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# Shape Up

by Basecamp

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# Summary

* Six-weeks cycles
* Shape up process
* Two-weeks cooldown

Goal: To target the risk of not shipping on time.

Anti-Goal: This isn’t about the risk of building the wrong thing.

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# Problem

As software teams grow:

* "Projects are never-ending"
* PMs can’t find time to think strategically about the product
* Founders: "Why can’t we get features out the door like we used to in the early days?"

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# Six-weeks cycle

* Long enough to build something meaningful
* Short enough you can feel the deadline looming
* Goal: Move the product forward in the next six weeks

\> "If this project ships after six weeks, we’ll be really happy. We’ll feel our time was well spent."

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# Basecamp as a company

* 50-odd people
* No full time managers
* Their product is built around this method

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# Shape up process

\> Shape the work before giving it to a team.

* Concretely enough that the teams know what to do
* Abstract enough to work out the interesting details themselves
* Wireframes are too concrete, words are too abstract
* Focus on appetite (instead of estimation): "how much time do we want to spend?"

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# Case study: The Dot Grid Calendar

Current state:

* Events list with no grid
* Customer ask for a calendar
* Estimation: six months
* Difficulties
  * Drag 'n' drop
  * Multi-day events
  * Drag the edge to change duration
  * Desktop and mobile interactions
* From past versions: only ~10% of customers used them

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# Case study: The Dot Grid Calendar

Shaped feature:

* Two-month read-only view
* Days with events would have a dot for each event
* Events list under the calendar
* Click on day scrolls on that day

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# Case study: The Dot Grid Calendar

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# Case study: The Dot Grid Calendar

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# Team sizes and members

* Give teams full responsibility
* Define their own tasks
* Change the scope
* Build vertical slices

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# Mitigating risk

* Solve open questions before commiting to a project
* Cap to six weeks (circuit breaker)
* Integrate design and programming early

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# Questions during shape up

* What are we trying to solve?
* Why does it matter?
* What counts as success?
* Which customers are affected?
* What is the cost of doing this instead of something else?

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# No backlog

* By default, new raw ideas are rejected without being put in a backlog.
* If it's really important it will come up again.

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# Baseline

* What customers are doing without the things we're currently building
* Compare against that and not the best solution that could be

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# Bet

* Commit to a project with no interruptions
* With an expectation to finish
* Small batch and big batch projects

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# Betting table

* Meeting during cooldown
* CEO, CTO, senior programmer, product strategist

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# Hill Charts

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# Scopes on hill charts

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# Build vertically

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# Six steps

* Kick-off
* Orient
* Scope
* Build Vertically (get one piece done)
* Report (hill charts)
* Ship (scope hammer)

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# Parallel tracks

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# <a href="https://basecamp.com/shapeup" style="color: inherit; text-decoration: none;">basecamp.com/shapeup</a>