"Stop running in circles and ship work that matters"

…it’s like a whole anti-thesis of SCRUM.

And it’s soo good. There was no chapter where I did not have a revelation of some sort: “this just makes so much sense”.

From a builder’s perspective, it gives a different meaning to everything I have been doing so far in a team format and opens a whole set of opportunities for the future.

This know-how combines the best practices and learnings that 37Signals, the team which authored this, has accumulated over more than 15 years of activity. Doers, walking the talk.

Here are a few of the reasons that make me believe Shape Up can really allow an organisation to be agile:

• you plan for only one cycle ahead, which is 6 weeks: the future is shaped by this progress and what you learn in the meantime.

• bye bye to exact specifications: you define the “what?” and “don’ts” through pitches. Designers and developers tackle the “how”.

• key stakeholders bet on work that has the highest impact & chance of being shipped in a cycle.

• do everything you can to ship by the end of the cycle: adios to “can we change this too?”, welcome to “does this even matter?”

• asynchronous communication & small teams are a thing, saving large chunks of time from classical sprint ceremonies

• you will reach at least 6 main releases in one year, with countless other smaller batches of features delivered to users in between

…and there’s so much more, a whole shift in mindset.

I’m currently reading it for the 2nd time to ensure I really get all the concepts within. It’s a game changer though for me.

You can explore the book for free on https://basecamp.com/shapeup or, if you prefer the printed edition, you can order it from https://basecamp-goods.com/products/shapeup.

It took a few days for me to receive the package in Austria, shipped directly from the US.

Just like with any other methodology, there are some exceptions: I’m not sure how this would work in large or public organisations, where the management is positioned very far from development teams, but I find it ideal for small to medium sized companies that work on their own products, the ones that have their skin in the game.

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Discovering #ShapeUp, written by Ryan Singer, was an entire journey for me. It started while exploring HEY, which brought me to 37signals, then ONCE and Basecamp. I knew about the latter, but never gave it the right amount of attention. Nowadays I’m effectively going through all REWORK podcast episodes, trying to absorb the knowledge that Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson (the leaders of 37signals) are sharing. Precious.