Shape Up talks about two project sizes: 1-2 week “small batch” projects and 6 week “big batch” projects. Since my company adopted Shape Up I’ve noticed a tendency for our project appetites to be 3-5 week (with an average of 4 weeks) “medium batch” projects.
An informal survey of the builder teams indicates this isn’t working well – the majority said they had enough work to fill 6 weeks. I’m starting to think “medium batch” projects are a dangerous middle ground – the scope is large enough it’s likely to have unknowns but you lose the natural slack that cool down provides to prevent those unknowns from delaying the next project.
Has anyone else experimented with “medium batch” projects? What has your experience been?
If you’re not doing “medium batch” projects how are you scheduling them? If the work actually does seem like it will take 4 weeks do you make it a six week project with a smaller builder team?
It’s helpful to see the Appetite as “how much time do we want to spend on this problem” rather than “how long will this solution take”. From Chapter 3:
An appetite is completely different from an estimate. Estimates start with a design and end with a number. Appetites start with a number and end with a design. We use the appetite as a creative constraint on the design process.
Coming from the Agile world, it’s hard to disconnect from the whole estimate idea, but I think it’s key to understanding the fixed time, variable scope principle.
Up to now, we have not encouraged “medium/4 weeks” pitches when shaping.
BUT, we have used it to “curb” when approving pitchs. We will sometime say one of those two:
Curbing down: “We know you asked for 6 weeks, but let’s see where you can get with the 4 we have available… knowing there will be either big sacrifices of leftovers”
Curbing up: "We know you asked for only 2, but here’s 4… it’s worth it and 2 week felt too risky.
Expectations need to be curbed accordingly… when curbing up to 4, we expect a good chance of delivery with high expectations. When curbing down, we manage expectations and can’t act surprised if it’s “half done” or “halfed baked” at the end.