Shape Up, Who does the Shaping?
It is one of the articles in the Shape Up series.
For Table of Contents go to: How to make Shape Up successful?
Who does the Shaping?
The most common question for the Shaping phase is who does the Shaping. Basecamp answers this question in Who Shapes chapter of the book.
We may see a conclusion to involve someone aware of the design, business, and tech. It usually leads to building a team who can collaborate to create the following pitches. Someone should also be empowered to set the concrete level of investment (Appetite / Time-Budget).
From my perspective, the composition of the Shapers may differ. Here’s how.
Board / Founder / Leader does the Shaping
In early-stage companies, usually, there is a Product Leader / Chief Product Officer who will be strongly involved in the Shaping process. In many organisations, this person will be the only one with authority to make the calls on implementing the following features.
The good thing is that it lowers the need to involve the whole team in the discovery process and doesn’t create the need to educate everyone with domain knowledge. Ouch, stop! Writers of the most modern books would blame me for that, but yes… I think this approach is ok in many cases.
However, there are two main drawbacks to going this way.
The first one is that once the organisation grows, the CPO becomes a bottleneck for everyone else.
The second one is that it produces a team focused on just the delivery. To read more on this topic, visit Missionaries vs Mercenaries by Marty Cagan.
Product Trio does the Shaping
Once your company evolves, you may take another approach that doesn’t narrow the Shaping process to just one person. There is an idea of the Product Trio in the Continuous Discovery Habits book by Teresa Torres. It is similar to Three Amigos popularised in Scrum. Both views are about bringing different perspectives together and letting them collaborate.
Product Trio is made of a Product Manager, Engineer and Designer. These people might be a “Head/Chief Level”, but do not have to. This is a very effective composition for shaping the future of the product.
The critical aspect you need to take care of in this approach is encouraging these people to collaborate. It is NOT about permitting them to Shaping in separation from each other.
Everyone does the Shaping
The third approach is to let everyone write Shapes/Pitches. This step raises involvement on all levels within the organisation. It may surprise you with many valuable ideas you will get from people.
Providing everyone with a Product Vision and Strategy is mandatory to make them successful. Without sharing the strategic context with them, the likelihood of shaping something irrelevant to your strategic goals is relatively high. People will get demotivated and stop participating in discovery activities if you reject many of their ideas during the Betting Table while choosing your own.
Once you share the context and strategy with them, you must ensure they have the time for it. Most likely, Builders will not have the time to write the Pitches during the Building Phase. Of course, they may try to do that during the Cooldown phases.
Also, many people will have great ideas, but they’ll not be willing to write that down just because they might not be the best writers. In such a case, you can share a simple Google Form with everyone asking them to describe their idea in 2 sentences and recommend the Appetite. Then you may review the survey, contact them and help write the final Shape/Pitch.
Mix all above
Once you know three different approaches, you may mix them.
Allowing everyone at the company to work on the Shapes while you’re still letting CPO or Product Trio do it is a good move. It enables leaders to execute the strategy and allows all employees to participate in the future of the product.
Then you can bet on the Pitches from these various sources.
Just think about how to make this mixture work.
Ask for feedback on the Pitch, early
There is a single risk worth mentioning for the Shaping.
Many people keep their hard work hidden until something becomes “demoable”.
During the Shaping process, it is worth publishing drafts and sharing the Pitches in the early stages (before the Betting) so that other people can provide some feedback.
Even if just one person is working on a Shapes, opening them for feedback from everyone leads to positive results.
Who does the Building?
The ones who can code and design — however, at least one more person must be involved.
Include the owner of the Pitch in Building
Builders will need direct and constant access to the person who prepared the Pitch or anyone who understands the why? behind the Pitch.
Soon, we will focus more on the project roles and responsibilities.
Remember that Shape Up is not meant to be a waterfall process. People who wrote the Pitch must be involved during the Building phase to support Builders with knowledge and feedback.
The following article will discuss how concrete the Pitches should be.