IxDF Developer Docs

Appearance

Phase 2: Betting ​

TL;DR: Betting table is a place where we pick tasks the biggest impact on the product.

The stakeholders (founders, team leads and relevant experts) meet once every 8 weeks in a betting round table to bet on pitches that the development team will focus on in the upcoming build cycle. Before the call, every participant with vote permission needs to read each pitch to understand what it involves, what value it would bring if it were worked on and how much time and resources it would take to do so. By “betting” on a pitch, they commit to allowing the dev team up to 6 weeks to deliver on the promises of the idea.

Nothing else is on the table. There’s no giant list of ideas to review. There’s no time spent grooming a backlog of old ideas. The pitches are potential bets.

If we decide to bet on a pitch, it goes into the next cycle to build. If we don’t, we let it go. There’s nothing we need to track or hold on to.

Who is on the meeting? ​

  1. CEO (Mads)
  2. Stakeholders: everyone who participated in shaping process (usually team leads)
  3. Developers and designers who participated in the shaping-up process

Who can vote? ​

  1. Founders, (who have the last word on product)
  2. Product Designers
  3. Team Leads

People of these roles usually have a broad product overview, their votes are more neutral.

Output ​

The output of the call is a cycle plan. Among everyone present, there’s knowledge of who’s available, what the business priorities are, and what kind of work we’ve been doing lately.

The highest people in the company are there. There’s no “step two” to validate the plan or get approval. And nobody else can jump in afterward to interfere or interrupt the scheduled work.

This buy-in from the very top is essential to making the cycles turn properly. The meeting is short, the options well-shaped, and the headcount low. When these criteria are met, the betting table becomes a place to exercise control over the direction of the product instead of a battle for resources or a plea for prioritization.

Materials ​

To understand how betting works and what it entails, please read chapters 7–9 of the "Shape Up" book:

🦒