At Teamscope, we implemented the Shape Up Method in 2020 and immediately saw improvements in productivity and efficiency.

In this article, I’ll explain what the Shape Up Method is, why it’s in my opinion a brilliant approach to product development, and the impact it had on our team after two years of use.

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Who is this article for:

✅  You are a startup founder or product manager.

✅  Your team keeps promising you deadlines that aren't met.

✅  You feel there is chaos in your product development and it's affecting user experience and retention.
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If you tick all 3 boxes then this article is for you. If on the other hand, you love Scrum and it's working well for you, then skip this article.

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What is the Shape Up Method?

The Shape Up Method (free ebook) is a product development framework designed to help teams prioritize effectively and build better products. Created by Basecamp in 2019, Shape Up has been adopted by leading organizations like Mixpanel, Font Awesome, and Maze.

At its core, Shape Up is built around the principle of fixed time, variable scope. Here’s what that means:

• Fixed time: Teams work within predefined cycles, typically 3 to 6 weeks long. When the cycle ends, whatever work is complete gets shipped—no deadline extensions, no exceptions.
• Variable scope: Unlike traditional linear methods like Scrum or Waterfall, Shape Up allows flexibility within the cycle. Teams can adjust the scope—simplifying or excluding certain features—to ensure they can deliver a solid solution by the end of the cycle.
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This approach ensures teams stay focused, meet deadlines, and deliver real value without being bogged down by rigid processes.

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Key benefits of the Shape Up Method

Say goodbye to never-ending backlogs

In Scrum, pending features are often added to an ever-growing backlog in tools like Jira, Trello, or GitHub. Over time, this list can become an overwhelming and unmanageable burden.

Shape Up takes a different approach by eliminating backlogs altogether. Instead, ideas for product improvements are captured as pitches.

A pitch is not a commitment to build something—it’s simply a structured idea. It can remain in the pitch stage indefinitely, only moving forward when the team reaches a clear consensus to implement it. This system ensures that only the most valuable ideas are prioritized, avoiding the clutter and stress of traditional backlogs.

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Steady cadence and predictability

Shape Up’s cycle-based structure creates a predictable rhythm for product teams. Cycles last a fixed duration—typically 3 to 6 weeks—followed by a 1-week cool-down period. This cycle repeats continuously, bringing stability and focus to the team’s workflow.

Before each cycle begins, the team gathers at the betting table to decide what to work on next. Using the catalogue of pitches, they evaluate and prioritize ideas, selecting the most valuable and feasible ones for the upcoming cycle.

As teams complete more cycles, their understanding of what they can achieve within the set timeframe becomes sharper. This growing intuition enhances predictability, ensuring a steady pace of delivery and helping teams plan with greater confidence.

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A process that stands above all

Ego can sometimes disrupt team dynamics, leading to situations where individuals impose their own timelines or preferred workflows. Shape Up resolves this by creating a process that is non-negotiable and above any individual preferences.

No one can request a deadline extension. A deadline is a deadline.

This strict time constraint serves as a forcing function, pushing team members to plan with the end goal in mind, address potential risks early, and collaborate effectively.

By leaving ego at the door, teams can focus on delivering meaningful work within the defined cycle, fostering a healthier and more balanced working environment.

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Allocated time for bug fixes and housekeeping

A key feature of Shape Up is the cool-down period between cycles. Typically lasting a week, this time provides a break from feature development, allowing team members to focus on:

• Fixing bugs
• Refactoring code
• Exploring and learning new skills
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During the cool-down, individuals have the flexibility to choose what they want to work on, addressing tasks that often get sidelined during regular cycles.

This change of pace not only ensures technical upkeep but also promotes personal growth and a refreshed mindset, preparing the team to tackle the next cycle with renewed energy and focus.

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How to get started with Shape Up

1. Define your cycle length: Decide how long each cycle will be. Most teams choose cycles between 3 and 6 weeks, followed by a 1-week cool-down period.
2. Create a catalogue of pitches: Start building a collection of pitches for potential product improvements. Each pitch should include four key elements:
   • Problem: What are you solving?
   • Appetite: How much time and effort is reasonable to invest?
   • Solution: The proposed approach.
   • Rabbit holes and no-gos: Risks to avoid and boundaries to stay within.
     You can start with a simple sentence in tools like Google Docs or Notion and flesh it out over time.
3. Assemble a competent team: Keep the team small and focused. You’ll need:
   • A designer
   • One or two developers
   • Someone who can do quality assurance (QA)
4. Select features for the next cycle: During the cool-down period, decision-makers (often C-level executives) gather at the betting table to choose which pitches to prioritize for the next cycle.
5. Repeat and fefine: With each cycle, the team will improve at defining appetite, managing scope, and staying focused, leading to better outcomes over time.

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Free checklist

One of the things I love most about Shape Up is its simplicity. It’s easy for a team to adopt, experiment with for a few months, and then evaluate the benefits compared to Scrum.

If you’re ready to give Shape Up a try, start with this 7-step checklist: https://productalchemy.notion.site/Shape-Up-Method-Checklist-1391433731108033b907f37c163cd4ee‍‍

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How we implemented Shape Up at Teamscope

At Teamscope, we adopted 3-week cycles with a 1-week cool-down. While many teams opt for 6-week cycles, we found three weeks to be the ideal duration. This cadence allowed us to consistently ship twelve new features per year.

Each pitch was documented as a page in Notion, ranging from a simple one-line description to a detailed breakdown that included:

• Problem
• Appetite
• Solution
• FAQs
• UX/UI‍

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On the pitch we listed the names of users who had requested a particular feature. This enabled us to notify them when the feature was ready for beta testing or inform them it was planned for an upcoming cycle.

At the start of each cycle, our first task was to rewrite the entire pitch in the same tone and structure as our help documentation. By doing this in Notion, we ensured the help docs were ready by the end of the cycle.

On the release day, all we had to do was copy-paste the pitch into Webflow, our CMS, making the feature and documentation live simultaneously.

We prioritized maintaining the flow of each cycle and avoided interruptions wherever possible. If critical production bugs came up, we would briefly pause the cycle to address them but quickly return to the original plan. Recognizing the productivity cost of context switching, we aimed to defer bug fixes to the cool-down week.

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Conclusion

Creativity thrives under limitations—this is the essence of what makes Shape Up so powerful.

While the strict time constraints of a cycle may feel challenging at first, they push teams to prioritize effectively, sharpen their skills, and make the best use of their most valuable resource: time.

Creativity thrives under limitations.

Adopting Shape Up puts teams on a path to a more focused and balanced working environment. For us, it brought a steady cadence to our product development process, enabled us to ship twelve impactful features annually, and provided a clear understanding of what was achievable within our resources and constraints.

Embracing these constraints helps teams prioritize effectively, work smarter, and stay on track.