Shaping, betting, and building (Interview)

Ryan Singer, head of Product Strategy at Basecamp, joined the show to talk about their newest book — Shape Up: Stop running in circles and ship work that matters. It’s written by Ryan himself and you can read it right now for free online at Basecamp.com/shapeup.

We talked about the back story of the book, how the methodology for Shape Up developed from within at Basecamp, the principles and methodologies of Shape Up, how teams of varying sizes can implement Shape Up. Ryan even shared a special invitation to our listeners near the end of the show to his live and in-person Shape Up workshop on August 28th in Detroit, Michigan.

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Featuring:

• Ryan Singer – Website, GitHub, X
• Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
• Jerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

Show Notes:

• Shape Up
• Foreword by Jason Fried
• Principles of shaping
• Example pitches — “How we do it in Basecamp”
• Bets, Not Backlogs
• How to Begin to Shape Up
• Summary of the Shape Up method
• Shape Up glossary
• Ryan’s tweet about the Shape Up workshop
• If you have questions — email [email protected]
• Getting Real
• All of Basecamp’s books

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!