Shape Up Framework (Basecamp Style)

Stop running in sprint hamster wheels: Ship meaningful features in uninterrupted 6-week cycles followed by 2-week cooldowns.

Adopt This Workflow in Your Workspace

Instantly generate pre-configured board columns and starter engineering tasks.

Best Suited For

Mature product startups, product-led companies frustrated with endless two-week sprint tickets and micro-management.

Not Recommended For

Agencies with billable hourly clients or teams lacking senior autonomous engineers.

Default Kanban Pipeline Blueprint

STAGE 1

Shaped Pitches

STAGE 2

Cycle Active (Building)

STAGE 3

Over the Hill (Executing)

STAGE 4

QA & Polish

STAGE 5

Shipped in Cycle

Shaping the Work

Define Problem, Appetite (Small Batch: 2 wks vs Big Batch: 6 wks), Solution sketches, Rabbit holes to avoid.

Betting Table Selection

If a project is bet on, it gets full commitment. If not, it is discarded (no endless backlog clutter).

Autonomous Building

Team integrates early, defines tasks on the fly, and uses Hill Charts to track unknowns vs knowns.

Circuit Breaker & Ship

If the project cannot ship in 6 weeks, it does not get automatic extension—it gets killed to reassess.

Role	Primary Delivery Accountability
Shaping Team (Leadership / Architects)	Shapes pitches, defines boundaries, and resolves architectural rabbit holes before betting.
Betting Table (Decision Makers)	Commits 6-week cycles to selected shaped pitches. No interruptions permitted.
Autonomous Delivery Pod (2 Devs + 1 Designer)	Owns scope hammer, tasks discovery, and shipping the feature.

Ceremony	Duration	Objective & Output
Betting Table	1 Hour before cycle start	Review shaped pitches and place bets on what to build next cycle.
Cooldown Period	2 Weeks between cycles	No scheduled work. Developers fix bugs, explore new libraries, or pitch ideas.

Machine-readable documentation for AI Agents: /methodologies/shape-up-methodology.md

ThinkNCollab Free forever. Terminal sharing. E2EE video. Start free Login