Shape Up

Basecamp's own working method, published free online and in print. Work runs in six week cycles with no extensions, is shaped at the right level of abstraction before it is bet on, and is handed to teams who take full responsibility for discovering the tasks. A two week cool down follows each cycle. Covers appetite as a constraint rather than an estimate, breadboarding and fat marker sketches as shaping tools, circuit breakers, and hill charts for tracking work whose scope is discovered as it goes.