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All right, this is my first lightning talk. I used to call it a fireside chat, but it's a lightning talk, so thank you for the opportunity. I'm going to discuss Shape Up.
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I don’t have any slides or presentations, just one URL. Is anyone here familiar with Shape Up? That's cool! Great to hear. How many of you use it as your main methodology for software development?
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Okay, so a few. I wanted to discuss this a little bit. We implemented Shape Up at a company called Real Response in Charlotte, and we've been using it for almost two years now. I just wanted to talk about some of the differences and reasons why this methodology is worth looking into.
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For those of you who don't know, Shape Up is a software methodology created by the wonderful people at 37signals, the creators of Basecamp and Hey.com. It stems from their philosophy on how to simplify software development by keeping things simple.
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It also aims to change the way we think about the relationship between the developers, the product team, and the business. It focuses on how decisions are made and how to bring these roles closer together. This way, you avoid the cycle where someone makes decisions while others provide all the answers and mocks in a very linear fashion. It’s not a one-way street; instead, developers can contribute to the process.
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Now, some things Shape Up is not: it's not Agile, it's not Waterfall, and it's not Scrum. There is no backlog. It's a different way of thinking about how you look at the scope of your organization and your planning process. Many aspects change as a result.
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I've worked at companies where we had traditional Scrum planning, and I found that to be very challenging. Many teams share these challenges. I was fortunate enough to start at a small company with a few developers, where we didn’t really have a process. When we hired a new developer, John, who had experience with Shape Up, he suggested that we consider it.
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So, we started implementing it in September of 2022. We began with a simple spreadsheet that listed cycle start and end dates, tested it out, and gradually began to implement some of the core concepts within the company.
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Shape Up involves a different way of presenting ideas and selecting ideas for development. One key distinction in Shape Up is the use of six-week cycles. They frame it as a long enough period to accomplish something meaningful, avoiding the pitfalls of the traditional two-cycle loops.
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At the end of each cycle, there are retrospectives and a built-in cooldown period, allowing developers two weeks to work on what they find important at the time. This flexibility leads to increased developer satisfaction, which is vital. Working in an environment that fosters collaboration between designers and developers is extremely rewarding.
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In Shape Up, everything doesn't have to be well-defined when starting a project. You start with a problem as your foundation, and from there, you explore possible solutions while working on the project. This approach allows you to answer questions that might not be obvious at first and facilitates making changes as you progress.
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For me, the process has been a pleasure to work with. If you’re not familiar with Shape Up, I encourage you to look into it and see how it can be implemented on your team, perhaps as an experiment. Additionally, consider the advantages of working with companies that use Shape Up when making a potential switch.
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That’s it!
