Shape Up, Are Pitches the problems to solve?
It is one of the articles in the Shape Up series.
For Table of Contents go to: How to make Shape Up successful?
In the previous article, we’ve answered who does the shaping. Now, let’s look at the Pitch and what it contains.
Pitch structure by the book
Based on the knowledge from Shape Up book, the Pitch contains:
Problem
Appetite
Solution
Rabbit holes
No-gos
In this article, I want to explain the model, which may help you decide how concrete the Pitch should be.
The way how we delegate - matters
A long time ago, someone said how we describe work to be done matters.
The most modern product management techniques keep saying about giving engineers problems to solve. It is not a 0-1 game, and not all companies and not all engineers are ready to work in this way. While it might be a good desired state, you may need to start from a different level of work delegation.
Taking inspiration from 7 Levels of Delegation model, we can imagine a few levels of describing the pitches. On one side, pitches might be a micromanaged list of tasks; on the other, they may give full autonomy to the Builders.
Let’s use the legendary case of an eCommerce Cart. Each paragraph below is a separate example.
L1 - Tech tasks to be done
Please add API methods to enable frontend developers to call it from the UI. The following API interfaces should be:
addToCart(productId, quantity)
getCart()
changeCartItemQuantity(cartItemId, newQuantity)
removeCartItem(cartItemId)
Remember to include a customer token in a cookie for each endpoint.
Implement the frontend layer to allow users to call these API methods. UI layer needs to be implemented based on the designs from Figma.
L2 - Functional scope to be delivered
Please implement the following actions for the customer:
Make it possible to add a new item to the cart.
Make it possible to fetch the current state of the cart.
Make it possible to change the quantity of an item in the cart.
Make it possible to remove an item from the cart.
The final solution should contain backend logic and the UI to make it usable for the end-user.
L3 - Solution to be delivered
Currently, eCommerce store customers can purchase only a single item from our catalogue within a single checkout process. We want to let them purchase many items in a single order.
Please implement the eCommerce cart with 4 basic behaviours for adding cart items, fetching the cart, changing quantity and removing an item. Customer needs to be able to proceed to checkout with their cart.
Deliver end-to-end functionality.
L4 - Problem to solve
Currently, eCommerce store customers can purchase only a single item from our catalogue. Customers can click the “Purchase Now” button on the Products Listing Page or Product Details Page and buy it through the checkout page.
Many started asking about the possibility of buying many items with a single purchase. They want to buy many pieces of the same thing and many different items in a single checkout process.
L5 - Problem to understand and solve
Many of our customers shop about 20 times a day. We sell kitchen furniture in our eCommerce. That’s weird. Why do they place so many orders to the same delivery address?
L6 - Problem to discover and solve
Satisfaction analysis of our online customers states the average score is 6 on a scale from 0 to 10. We want to raise their level of satisfaction to 8 during this quarter.
Which is the best strategy?
All of them are good. Before writing a Pitch, you must understand the context which applies to you and your surroundings.
In not experienced teams delegating concrete tasks to be done may work best.
Writing down the API methods and classes in a Pitch in a super-skilled team may annoy engineers. On the other hand, it might be included in a Design Doc, but then it is up to you to write it during Shaping or Building.
Also, giving problems to solve to the engineering team with no discovery/analysis/experimentation skills might be risky. Some engineers may not like doing discovery work. The other ones may love it.
Set the desired state and go for it
In your implementation of Shape Up, you will most likely cooperate with engineers, designers, product managers and other stakeholders to understand the current state and the desired state of how you would like to work.
Based on this assessment's results, you can choose which strategy to use for writing your pitches.
How you work today in Shape Up is not written in stone. That’s going to evolve. Suppose today you describe technical tasks for engineers. In that case, you may agree to reach the level of giving them the whole functional project at the end of this quarter and then continue this journey towards giving them problems to solve at the end of the year.
Even if you reach the highest level of maturity, sometimes you need to get something done. Sometimes you need to experiment with a few solutions for a given problem. Sometimes you need to verify if a problem exists.
Aren’t L4, L5 and L6 a Shaping process?
It looks like they are.
But once you know the levels of delegating the work, you can try to draw a line between Shaping and Building. Maybe you will include more experimentation in the Building phase for some pitches? Or you will not.
Aren’t L1 and L2 a Planning process?
In Shape Up, the projects are given to the teams and then it is up to them how they will plan and execute them. That’s true.
We will discuss the Planning process separately in one of the following articles.
However, as this article is meant to help you understand how detailed the Pitches should be - you need to assess if providing a clear plan to the Builders is necessary. If you see it as necessary, I strongly encourage you to train the team on analysis, accountability, understanding of the product, planning, work breakdown, and asking questions.
From which level shall I start?
If you are just starting with Shape Up, going with L3 - Solution to be delivered might be a good idea.
What you do in the next Shape Up cycles will be up to you.
Disclaimer
Remember that content under the paragraphs above is not an example of the Pitch. It is just an idea of describing the work to be done.
For some examples of the Pitches, go to the official website Shape Up, Write the Pitch, Examples.
Lastly, before we discuss the Building phase, let’s take a last look at what the Shaping process looks like.