Home/agile/Ryan Singer

Ryan Singerperson

post-agileshape-upbasecampcriticalternative-methods
2 min read · Edit on Pyrite

Ryan Singer is the author of "Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters" (2019, Basecamp/Hey) and creator of the Shape Up methodology — an explicit alternative to Scrum and mainstream Agile practices developed at and for Basecamp (the company also known as 37signals). Shape Up is the most fully-realized methodological critique of Scrum to come from a practitioner perspective.

Shape Up as Critique

Shape Up is structured as a direct rejection of the core Scrum practices:

  • No sprints — instead, six-week "bets" with hard stops
  • No product backlog — the backlog is explicitly eliminated ("let it rot")
  • No daily-standup — synchronous status meetings are replaced by async updates
  • No story-points and planning-poker — estimation is replaced by "appetite" (how much time are we willing to spend?)
  • No velocity tracking — continuous delivery metrics are replaced by outcome-based judgment

    • The positive framework Singer proposes involves "shaping" work before it's handed to teams — defining the problem, setting constraints, and sketching a rough solution without specifying implementation details. Teams then have full autonomy within the six-week bet to deliver a working outcome.

    The Basecamp Context

    Shape Up emerged from Basecamp's particular context: a small, profitable, opinionated software company that self-consciously built against the grain of Silicon Valley startup culture and enterprise software norms. Basecamp/37signals had a long history of articulating alternative approaches — DHH and Jason Fried's books ("Rework," "Remote," "It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work") established the company as a contrarian voice in software culture. Singer's Shape Up is the methodology expression of the same contrarian tradition applied specifically to product development process.

    "Shape Up"

    Published in 2019 by Basecamp as a free web book (also available in print), shape-up is notable for:

  • Being freely available, without a certification industry attached
  • Being grounded in specific Basecamp practice rather than general frameworks
  • Providing a complete, coherent alternative to the Scrum workflow rather than just a critique
  • Targeting the specific failure modes that practitioners experience with Scrum: endless backlogs, sprint treadmills, planning overhead without improved outcomes

    • Movement Role

    Singer is a post-agile-era figure — his work appeared after the enterprise-scaling-era had produced SAFe and LeSS, and after the agile-industrial-complex critique had become mainstream. Shape Up gained significant traction among software product teams dissatisfied with Scrum, particularly in startup and mid-size product companies. It represents the "build your own methodology" response to Agile's institutionalization — consistent with the spirit of agile-manifesto-four-values while rejecting the framework machinery that had accumulated around them.

    Linked from

    Joshua Kerievsky Post-Agile Era Shape Up Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters

    Links to

    Daily Standup Story Points Planning Poker Velocity Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters Post-Agile Era Enterprise Scaling Era Agile Industrial Complex Agile Manifesto Four Values