Shape Up: The Framework for Teams Without Sprints

Shape Up is a working model from the software company Basecamp in which teams work in fixed six-week cycles, without sprints, without an ever-growing backlog and without estimates in hours. A small group of experienced people shapes initiatives in advance so that a team can finish them within one cycle, and a bet on those initiatives replaces prioritisation by list. The model suits product teams with clearly bounded initiatives and loses force where many teams depend on one another.

Its appeal lies in a problem many management teams know: teams work sprint after sprint, and yet it takes months for an initiative to reach the customer. Ryan Singer published Basecamp's way of working in 2019 as a book that is free to read online, and since then product organisations well beyond Basecamp have tested what it says. This article explains the building blocks, compares the model with Scrum and Kanban and names the criteria for deciding whether a switch pays off.

What is Shape Up and how does it work?

Shape Up has three phases: shaping the initiatives, betting on them and building within the cycle. In the first phase, experienced people known as shapers work up an initiative far enough that the solution and its boundaries are recognisable, without fixing every detail. The result is called a pitch and has five ingredients: the problem, the appetite, the solution sketch, the rabbit holes and the explicit no-gos. The appetite is the time the initiative is worth to the company, for example two or six weeks. It reverses the usual question: management decides how much time an initiative deserves, and the team designs the solution within that limit.

In the second phase a small group decides at the so-called betting table which pitches will be built in the coming cycle. This group consists of a few decision-makers, at Basecamp for example the chief executive, the head of technology and a product person. There is no central backlog to draw from. Pitches that are not chosen lapse, and anyone who considers them important brings them back in the next cycle. This rule prevents the lists that nobody can survey any longer.

In the third phase a small team builds the chosen initiative in six weeks. A typical group is one designer and one or two programmers. The team receives the initiative as a whole and breaks it into tasks itself, rather than being handed a finished list. The six weeks are followed by a two-week cool-down in which nobody works on a new initiative. The time belongs to the teams for bug fixing, tidying up and their own ideas, and the decision-makers prepare the next bet.

How does Shape Up differ from Scrum and Kanban?

Shape Up differs from Scrum and Kanban in three respects: it fixes the time, it dispenses with a continuous backlog and it separates shaping from building. Scrum, as defined in the 2020 Scrum Guide, works in sprints of one month or less with a product backlog and a sprint backlog. Kanban visualises the flow of work and limits the work in progress. Both methods are intended for continuous work on a product, whereas Shape Up is intended for bounded bets. The article on Scrum in mid-sized companies shows what Scrum looks like after a year, and the article on introducing Kanban describes the logic of flow.

The biggest practical difference concerns accountability. In Scrum the order of work rests with the product owner, who maintains the product backlog continuously. In Shape Up it rests with the betting group, and the build team is accountable for execution within the frame. Anyone introducing the model therefore shifts decision rights, and that is the point at which the introduction succeeds or fails.

When does Shape Up pay off?

Shape Up pays off when four conditions coincide: the initiatives can be completed in six weeks, a team can build them largely alone, experienced people are available to shape initiatives, and decision-makers are willing to lose bets rather than extend them. If one of these conditions is missing, the familiar damage follows. Teams without shaped initiatives grope in uncertainty, and bets without a stopping rule become permanent projects.

The model has limits where initiatives touch many teams. The company behind the method is of manageable size, and the method is tailored to that situation. In an organisation where one initiative has interfaces to several departments, additional rules for dependencies are needed. A basis for them is provided by the article on Team Topologies, which describes how teams can be cut so that they can own initiatives end to end.

How do you introduce Shape Up step by step?

The introduction works best with one pilot team and a single cycle before further teams follow. In the first step management chooses a team with a bounded product area and names two people who write pitches. In the second step three to five pitches are written with appetite and no-gos, from which the betting group selects one. In the third step the team builds for six weeks without receiving additional tasks, and keeps a hill chart. In the fourth step the group reviews in the cool-down which bets paid off and writes the next cycle.

Three questions offer a test. Was the scope adjusted to hold the deadline, and did the deadline stand? Did the team take decisions without asking back? Did the decision-makers stop a bet instead of extending it? If the organisation answers yes, the model is taking effect. Measuring throughput and waiting time complements observation, as the article on flow metrics shows.

Shape Up and organisation design with Niehues Consulting

Niehues Consulting is a consultancy for AI management and organisation design from a delivery perspective, based in Düsseldorf. Founder Marin Niehues builds organisations that deliver, on projects ranging from VC-funded scale-ups to DAX 40 groups and in more than 20 countries on six continents. Whether Shape Up, Scrum or Kanban fits an organisation is decided by its roles and decision paths, and that is where the service line delivery management and organisation design begins.

The approach follows the Niehues Delivery Model with three phases. Two of its test questions count when choosing a way of working: who decides, who delivers, who uses? Which roles, decision paths and interfaces does operation need? Anyone who introduces a model without answering these questions copies rituals that have no effect. The entry point is a free initial consultation of 30 minutes, which you can arrange via the contact form.