Not to hijack the conversation, but I though some people interested in replacing estimations could find this useful.
In order to replace estimation, we are trying Basecamp's Shapeup language and techniques [1]
In a nutshell the thinking is reversed, instead of asking:
- "how long would it take to implement X?"
you ask:
- "how much appetite (in weeks and people involved) do I have for this feature ?"
Then you work with a fix "dead line" and variable scope.
Instead of user stories, they call it Bets, and they give themselves 2 weeks to shape bets and 6 to implement them (these two cycles can happen in parallel), during those weeks is about leaving the design at the Mockup/sketch level, and identify with help of business and technical people all the possible risks, so the Bet safe becomes a safer Bet.
We are still in the first cycle, and still a lot of questions and doing our own little customisations, but everyone response seems to be positive with the way of working, curious if anyone else has tried succeed and fail.
We've been doing Shape Up since July 2020 and have yet to fail to ship what we shape for each 6 week cycle, and while there's sometimes a bit of a crunch in the last few days before a release, everyone is generally working at a pretty relaxed pace.
My favorite side-effect of working this way as a leader is that by batching 6 weeks worth of planning effort, the team (and myself) can just be generally left alone to get into it without having to decide on the next priority every single week. Combined with async check-ins (that the team provide themselves every couple of days via Basecamp) instead of daily/weekly stand-ups, everyone generally has an empty calendar at all times.
Flipping the question within a restricted variable is my favorite hack.
Overlords - “How much money do you need for this project?”
Me - “How much money can we spend?” / “How much time should we spend?”
Friend- “Look at how much money that CEO earns!”
Me - “What will you give up in your lifestyle to do what the CEO does?”
The only challenge though in these situations is that most people aren’t open enough to do “Think in bets”. They either avoid the question or don’t even attempt to come an answer (despite them not spending a single dime!).
Shape Up is really powerful and cuts straight to the meat of things which is getting things done as opposed to the traditional way of planning and processes greater than actual results. We’ve been using Shape Up for a little over a year at the Sailscasts Company and love every bit of idea in it. I think personally is a lean mean way of getting things done with tangible and measurable results!
Shape up is a powerful framework, it takes a while to get right but it’s very worth doing. We are about a year in, still improving at it. Our main focus now is doing things more by the book and getting rid of the customizations we added in the early days - so try and not make too many! :)
Email is in profile if you want to chat more on trade notes on it.
We've been using ShapeUp at Zinc Learning Labs for two years now and it has done wonders to our pace and sanity. I wrote about our experience with ShapeUp recently, specifically about moving away from estimation - https://world.hey.com/karthikc/wrestling-with-the-unknown-be...
In order to replace estimation, we are trying Basecamp's Shapeup language and techniques [1]
In a nutshell the thinking is reversed, instead of asking:
- "how long would it take to implement X?"
you ask:
- "how much appetite (in weeks and people involved) do I have for this feature ?"
Then you work with a fix "dead line" and variable scope.
Instead of user stories, they call it Bets, and they give themselves 2 weeks to shape bets and 6 to implement them (these two cycles can happen in parallel), during those weeks is about leaving the design at the Mockup/sketch level, and identify with help of business and technical people all the possible risks, so the Bet safe becomes a safer Bet.
We are still in the first cycle, and still a lot of questions and doing our own little customisations, but everyone response seems to be positive with the way of working, curious if anyone else has tried succeed and fail.
- [1] https://basecamp.com/shapeup