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Phase 1: Shaping ​

Definition ​

Shaping is the process of clearly defining the problem, the solution, the risks and issues and the rabbit holes of an idea upfront to avoid unproductive delays and issues when we eventually turn it into a feature or product. It is a collaborative process between stakeholders, designers, developers and experts in the business who can contribute to a greater understanding of what the idea is and what it solves.

From idea to pitch ​

OK, you have an idea that you want to shape up and prepare a pitch for the betting table call.

When to start? — It’s better to start shaping your ideas in parallel with a new building cycle: ShapeUp Phases

Step 1: Make sure the idea is worth implementation ​

Our resources are limited, we should focus on ideas with the highest ROI index:

ROI Formula

  1. Your idea should help the company and your team to complete current goals/KPIs.
  2. It should be doable within 6-week period (if it's huge, you can decompose it to a (semi)independent few 6-week pitches).
  3. Check how this idea may co-exist with other ideas from our roadmap: there may be conflicts or your task may be solved more efficiently on another level, and it's already in our roadmap.

At this point, you should collect context information that you most likely will use to "sell" the idea on the betting table call (e.g., potential revenue, customer happiness, etc.).

Step 2: Set the appetite ​

Appetite is a fixed amount of time that the team wants to spend on a project or feature, as opposed to having an estimated time needed to deliver it. It is a choice made in advance about how much time a particular project is worth.

The difference from estimated time to implement is that the latter would involve deciding what needs to be done, making estimations about how long it will take, and then scheduling the time. With the appetite approach, the situation is reversed: you start with how much time you want to spend, and then tailor the solution to fit within that time frame.

The Appetite is usually determined by higher-level members of the team, such as product managers, team leads or even CEO. It often involves strategic decision-making about the product, customer needs and business goals. Once a project's appetite is defined, this constraint helps guide the shaping work and the design or development process.

You can read more about it at the Chapter 3: Set Boundaries.

If you properly completed the previous step, it should not be difficult to set the appetite.

Step 3: Share the draft with your colleagues ​

Colleagues, especially from other teams, may see your idea from a different angle and thus propose better solutions (example: use 3rd party service instead of developing our in-house solution) or even reject the idea (like "we tried it 2 times in 2015 and 2020 - it dosn’t work"). They can also help you to identify risks, rabbit holes and no-goes (Chapter 5: Risks and Rabbit Holes).

  • Risks: Edge cases or risks that could jeopardize the mini-project
  • Rabbit Holes: Technical unknowns, unsolved design problems, or misunderstood interdependencies—the project could take multiple times the original appetite to complete
  • No-goes: Anything specifically excluded from the concept: functionality or use cases we intentionally aren’t covering to fit the appetite or make the problem tractable

Note this is the initial collaboration step, a bit later you will work more closely with designers and developers (during the cool-down period).

Step 4: Go deeper and collaborate with designers and developers ​

Now you are sure that the ROI of the idea is high enough to go deeper and invest more time in it!

Sub-steps:

  1. Explore how the idea works with existing functionality we have. For example, how it will work for existing Members in different states: active, expired, trial, canceled; for membership types: professional, student, design league, non-paying EP, professional EP.
  2. Contact a product designer to explore the UI for the idea to create fat marker sketches (they will create designs during the building cycle).
  3. Contact developers to choose the direction for the technical solution (they will work on a detailed technical solution during the building cycle). Which developer to ask? — You can ask a Dev Team Lead who is the best developer for your idea, or simply use Modules and Code Owners to find it on your own.

This step is the latest opportunity to change appetite, find risks and rabbit holes.

Step 5: Write a pitch ​

Write a document that will describe:

  1. Opportunity/problem
  2. Appetite
  3. Solution
  4. Rabbit holes
  5. No-gos

To help you get started, use the template file in the Dropbox directory with all pitches. Please store the pitch documents in the appropriate Betting Table subfolder so that they are easy to locate. If there isn't one, feel free to create it.

Some pitch examples:

Step 6: Share the pitch ​

All pitches should be shared and publicity available at least 1 working day before the betting table. This way everyone will have time to read them and spend less time on the betting table.

Where to share? — Usually someone already created a thread to share pitches for the upcoming betting table. If you are the first one: feel free to create a Slack thread on #dev channel.

Materials ​

To understand how shaping works and what it entails, please read chapters 2-5 of the "Shape Up" book:

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