CEO Jason Fried and Head of Strategy Ryan Singer talk about the Shape Up approach to product development that we use at Basecamp. They discuss organizing work in six-week cycles, how to handle disagreement, and how so much of the process boils down to making trade-offs. You can also watch the full video of this Q&A session.

Show Notes

Going Remote Q&A videos on YouTube - 00:57

Basecamp's remote work resources - 1:00

Jason Fried | Ryan Singer on Twitter - 1:09

Hey, Basecamp's forthcoming email product - 1:23

Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters - 2:17

Q1: How do you go about planning something from scratch? What are the different milestones in the product-planning process? - 4:59

An explainer of six-week cycles - 6:10

An explainer of finding the epicenter from Getting Real, Basecamp's earlier book on product development - 11:50

Q2: How do you decide how far to break down projects? Can you be so granular that you reach a point of diminishing returns? - 13:31

Shape Up chapter on scopes - 16:10

Q3: How do you decide which pitches to execute, and how often do you disagree? - 19:32

Spikeball - 27:55

Q4: How is potential value creation assessed in the betting process? - 27:58

Q5: How do you alert someone about work that needs to be done by them? - 34:45

Q6: How do you do a 6-week cycle for a whole new project? - 37:10

Inverted pyramid - 38:36

Q7: How do you pitch the Shape Up process to someone who’s not technical? - 39:28

Q8: How do you train team members to learn the work process? - 42:28

Q9: How do conversations with customers fit into the shaping and strategy? - 46:22

Q10: What do you do about people who ignore the breadboarding and fat marker techniques? - 50:33

Q11: Is there a utility in using software? - 54:49

Q12: When approaching features like two-factor authentication or encryption, how do you balance what’s most secure with what’s most convenient for users? - 55:22

Q12: How did you decide to work on Hey? What’s the bet and how did you structure the team separate from Basecamp? - 1:03:10

Highrise - 1:03:26

"Highrise is back with Basecamp" (Signal v. Noise ) - 1:07:22