Episode 389: Ryan Singer on Basecamp’s Software Development Process
Ryan Singer, head of strategy at Basecamp, discusses the “Shape Up” method of software development with host Nate Black. Scrum pushes too many strategic decisions down on development teams, without giving them enough time to do meaningful work. Instead, Basecamp uses an up-front mix of strategy and design called “shaping”. Basecamp sees backlogs as a psychological weight and a credibility problem. They replace up-front front task assignment with strategic “bets” on time-limited projects. Teams handle task discovery and “map” the solution space. Rather than completion status, they focus on knowns and unknowns — risk — using tools like scope mapping, checklists, and hill charts.
Related links
- Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters
- SE-Radio Episode 261: David Heinemeier Hansson on the state of Rails, Monoliths, and More
- SE-Radio Episode 307: Harsh Sinha on Product Management
- SE-Radio Episode 306: Ron Lichty on Managing Programmers
SE Radio theme: “Broken Reality” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com — Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0)
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Tags: agile, design, project management, scrum, strategy
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This podcast is so good that despite the fact that some subject might have aged a bit – it’s not a newcast though – I started listening right from the beginning, 2007 that is.
Many subjects and discussions are still relevant in 2019. Principles do not change very often. This podcast is like philosophical foundations of software engineering, most likely they will be true for quite a while; at least till singularity comes in.
it is awesome!thanks for share.