One of the first things I did in my new role was to revamp how our development team operates. Previously, the team followed the familiar Scrum/Kanban approach—using Jira and working in two-week sprints.

In my experience, this way of working often results in limited foresight and little room for error. If someone falls ill or something unexpected happens, it’s almost inevitable that the team won’t be able to complete all the tasks planned for the sprint. Unfortunately, this was exactly the case for our team.

Exploring a New Approach…

About a year ago, I came across a framework called Shape Up. The core idea behind Shape Up is to reduce micromanagement and empower teams to work autonomously.

Shape Up uses longer project cycles (six weeks) where a team is assigned one or more tasks, known as “shapes.” A shape is a task description written in plain text that outlines the scope and content of the project. From there, it’s up to the team to make the decisions necessary to complete the work. Each team is free to handle the project in a way that suits them best—whether that means breaking it down into sprints or managing it differently.

Between cycles, there’s a two-week “cooldown” period. This time is meant for tasks that often get pushed aside, like testing a new framework or learning a new skill.

We’ve just completed our first cycle and are about to start the second. Although it’s too soon to draw any definite conclusions, I consider the first cycle a success. We managed to complete nearly all items, and the team’s feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. The extended project scope, compared to two-week sprints, has allowed us to build features with greater thoughtfulness and planning.

As we move into the next cycle, I’m eager to see if this positive momentum continues.

Over and out!