Shape Up
Educational
Inspirational
Simple

Shape Up Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters

Shape Up is for product development teams who struggle to ship. If you’ve thought to yourself “Why can’t we ship like we used to?” or “I never have enough time to think about strategy,” then this book can help. You’ll learn language and techniques to define focused projects, address unknowns, and increase collaboration and engagement within your team.
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Reviews

Photo of Rafael Matsumoto
Rafael Matsumoto@rafaelmatsumoto
4 stars
Feb 25, 2024

In an area dominated by Scrum, it is genuinely pleasant to learn that a successful company is adopting a totally different approach on how they develop their product.

Photo of Diego Larrain
Diego Larrain@dly
4 stars
Feb 23, 2023

Me quedo con que es un buen framework para aprender a decir que no, y a partir de eso, aumentar la capacidad de delivery.

Photo of Nick Gracilla
Nick Gracilla@ngracilla
5 stars
Jan 16, 2023

Shape Up is a great read for software teams who are looking to improve their development practices. It’s not capital-A-Agile, nor kanban, nor pair nor agile nor a mashup of methodologies: instead, it’s an organic practice developed at Basecamp over the years to address their specific needs as a software team dedicated to the development, maintenance, support, and growth of SAAS digital products. I particularly liked how the book addressed both “Truths” in software development, and the apparatus they developed to address the Truths. Some are well known: “Work expands to fill the time available.” Some feel like a refreshing wakeup from typical practices: “Backlogs are a big weight we don’t need to carry. Dozens and eventually hundreds of tasks pile up that we all know we’ll never have time for. The growing pile gives us a feeling like we’re always behind even though we’re not. Just because somebody thought some idea was important a quarter ago doesn’t mean we need to keep looking at it again and again.” And others defuse the perennial problem of scope changes: “Scope grows naturally. Scope creep isn’t the fault of bad clients, bad managers, or bad programmers. Projects are opaque at the macro scale. You can’t see all the little micro-details of a project until you get down into the work. Then you discover not only complexities you didn’t anticipate, but all kinds of things that could be fixed or made better than they are.” Finally, other truths come from a “developers-first” culture that takes seriously the value and thinking people bring to the table: “Teams love being given more freedom to implement an idea the way they think is best. Talented people don’t like being treated like “code monkeys” or ticket takers.” Shape Up breaks from typical PM and development methodologies. It starts with “well-shaped pitches,” that is, a proposal for development that is flushed out—not in terms of look and feel, but rather in terms of integration, user experience, and flow. No dead ends or handwaving stuff by the time it comes to the dev team. It continues with a de-emphasis on issues and tasks, created before the work has started — it uses the pitch, instead, to drive an assigned team, enabling the team itself to understand the scope of the problem, and create the issues and tasks needed to address it. This emphasis on “get something working” and the focus on doing real work is a nice break from what one thinks one has to do, at the start of the project, well outside the weeds of doing it. Finally, the methodology locks on time as a constraint, and flexes on scope: Basecamp uses a six-week work cycle, and projects are expected to launch within that cycle. That can happen by chunking off the right amount of work, and enabling the team to flex on scope — identifying “nice to haves” as such, and keeping the eye on the mission of launching within the cycle. “Anybody can suggest expensive and complicated solutions. It takes work and design insight to get to a simple idea that fits in a small time box. Stating the appetite and embracing it as a constraint turns everyone into a partner in that process.” While the specific implementation techniques Shape Up highlights are unique Basecamp and may be more appropriate for SAAS teams, the underlying truths of software development will resonate with all teams. I’m looking forward to applying some of these methods to our own practices.

Photo of Josh Clement
Josh Clement@joshclement
5 stars
Mar 16, 2022

Clear thinking. I'm sure there's a million "What about X" that Ryan didn't cover, but this is a good starting point for simple product development.

Photo of Luke Jones
Luke Jones@lukejones
4 stars
Sep 17, 2021

Send this to your PMs.

Photo of Les Reynolds
Les Reynolds@lreynolds
4 stars
Jul 29, 2021

Really great for those looking at a different way of building software.

Photo of Mateusz Gostanski
Mateusz Gostanski@mgostanski
5 stars
Dec 30, 2024
+4
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Aleksander Kruszelnicki@alkrusz
4.5 stars
Mar 4, 2024
+3
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Sebastian Stoelen@sebastianstoelen
4 stars
Dec 5, 2023
+2
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Imran@imranashraf
5 stars
Sep 2, 2022
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Jorge Ruvalcaba@jorgearuv
5 stars
Jul 14, 2022
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Bailey Jennings@baileyjennings
5 stars
Apr 30, 2024
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Niels Andersen@nielsandersen
5 stars
Apr 30, 2024
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Priyanka Pal@priyanka__pal
4 stars
Mar 31, 2024
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Sebastian De Deyne@sebdd
4 stars
Jan 31, 2024
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David Furnes@dfurnes
5 stars
Jan 25, 2024
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Ricardo@ricardobarbosa
4 stars
Dec 19, 2023
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Michael Ernst@beingernst
5 stars
Dec 18, 2023
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Andrei Stanciu@andreistanciu
4 stars
Oct 30, 2023
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Mert@mertb
5 stars
Sep 10, 2023
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Andrea@andreat
5 stars
Jul 6, 2023
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Rudd Zwolinski@starling
5 stars
Feb 26, 2023
Photo of Daniel Toke Hansen
Daniel Toke Hansen@danieltoke
5 stars
Feb 13, 2023
Photo of Cheah Chu Yeow
Cheah Chu Yeow@chuyeow
5 stars
Feb 1, 2023

Highlights

Photo of Casper Klenz-Kitenge
Casper Klenz-Kitenge@cabgfx

An appetite is completely different from an estimate. Estimates start with a design and end with a number. Appetites start with a number and end with a design. We use the appetite as a creative constraint on the design process.

Page 29

This notion of Appetite as opposed to Estimate(s) is such a profound insight, crazy relevant to anyone involved with creative projects. Constraints breed creativity 💡

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