Ditch your Backlog and Shape Up your product development
summary
A small Norwegian startup of 15 people moves from a ballooning backlog that would take two years to finish to six-week cycles plus two-week cooldowns, replacing estimates with an appetite and decisions at a betting table. Ideas are shaped with fat marker sketches, pitched, sliced and delivered — for example a released secondary‑heir workflow built within a cycle. After ~three years on Shape Up the codebase has lower technical debt and delivery rate and developer productivity increase measurably.
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chapters (9)
- 0:00Traditional backlogs fail
- 13:54Shape Up methodology
- 28:50Success and rabbit holes
- 35:53Estimates versus appetite
- 41:52Betting table and pitch
- 47:56Team collaboration
- 51:03Cooldowns and debt
- 53:11Strategic roadmaps
- 59:32Results after three years
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