# Shaping document examples
**URL:** https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/t/shaping-document-examples/460
**Category:** Uncategorized
**Created:** [July 28, 2020, 12:19am UTC](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/t/shaping-document-examples/460 "2020-07-28T00:19:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 19
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@blairrorani](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/u/blairrorani)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2020, 12:19am UTC](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/t/shaping-document-examples/460/1 "2020-07-28T00:19:45Z")
I remember seeing someone posted their “shaping document” on Twitter the other week, but I must have forgotten to bookmark it. Interested in seeing example of shaping docs if anyone wants to share (as in output of shaping work collected in a document).
I haven’t created one before so nothing to share yet, but would appreciate any examples that can be shared in public. Thanks 🙌
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### Author:  [@rkda](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/u/rkda)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2020, 2:34pm UTC](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/t/shaping-document-examples/460/2 "2020-07-28T14:34:45Z")
I’m not sure I saw that tweet you mentioned but I did see one awesome doc here in the forum by @mattdonovan
> [@Who's writing the pitches?](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/t/whos-writing-the-pitches/156/2):
>
> Hey Omid, I’ve recently been working through this challenge as well. Our company adopted Shape Up in September/October. There are a few people on our team who expressed interest in shaping and pitching and asked for help getting started. There were also some folks (mostly designers) who felt like the projects they were being assigned were too prescriptive. In order to help both types of people contribute at a more strategic level, [I created a pitch template](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yZjn4TfWPNUAvpYYRnEU1C4HYCDlUfsZ0R5-EfI6z7s/edit?usp=sharing) that has been working pretty well fo…
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### Author:  [@Aylon](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/u/Aylon)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2020, 10:52pm UTC](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/t/shaping-document-examples/460/3 "2020-07-28T22:52:16Z")
Hey, I’m happy to share a few examples of ones I’ve written in the past if it helps anyone 🙂 They’re not amazing or anything and I’m always tweaking the layout and approach based on learnings & feedback. Anyway, feel free to check them out here…
Older version of our docs - [https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/rYdSj5UGhQL6zDnzEaBuTh8j](https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/rYdSj5UGhQL6zDnzEaBuTh8j)
Here’s a bit more recent - [https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/YZWdQFyrsk66hd7n7VJuktxV](https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/YZWdQFyrsk66hd7n7VJuktxV)
Thoughts/feedback welcome!
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### Author:  [@blairrorani](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/u/blairrorani)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2020, 4:47am UTC](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/t/shaping-document-examples/460/4 "2020-07-29T04:47:38Z")
Nice work. Do you even include sketches of what you’re describing in your pitches?
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### Author:  [@Aylon](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/u/Aylon)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2020, 10:49pm UTC](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/t/shaping-document-examples/460/5 "2020-07-30T22:49:32Z")
Yes, sometimes we include fat market sketches or breadboards. These two projects just didn’t need them.
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### Author:  [@janmikula](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/u/janmikula)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2020, 8:45am UTC](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/t/shaping-document-examples/460/6 "2020-07-31T08:45:23Z")
Here is our latest Pitch that we are implementing in current cycle:
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### Author:  [@markj9](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/u/markj9)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2022, 7:09pm UTC](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/t/shaping-document-examples/460/7 "2022-06-06T19:09:14Z")
Any chance these could be made viewable again?
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### Author:  [@Radu](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/u/Radu)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2022, 5:37am UTC](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/t/shaping-document-examples/460/8 "2022-07-19T05:37:15Z")
hi @Aylon - I saw some links, but cannot access them now.
can you make them available? or what should I do to get the content?
thank you
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### Author:  [@Aylon](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/u/Aylon)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2022, 9:02pm UTC](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/t/shaping-document-examples/460/9 "2022-07-21T21:02:36Z")
Hey, I’m really sorry, but those were for a company I don’t work at anymore and it seems they turned off the public sharing on that Basecamp account. Unfortunately I don’t have access, so I’m unable to do anything to make the content available again. Sorry that’s happened, but nothing I can do if my old company decided to stop sharing these ☹
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### Author:  [@Radu](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/u/Radu)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2022, 4:46am UTC](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/t/shaping-document-examples/460/10 "2022-07-24T04:46:30Z")
Thank you @Aylon for your prompt reply
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### Author:  [@peter](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/u/peter)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2022, 5:08am UTC](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/t/shaping-document-examples/460/11 "2022-09-02T05:08:32Z")
[Avacode](https://www.notion.so/Shape-Up-template-by-Avocode-9478361c11c64a5ebe83abe74e39f9b8) has templates but no examples.
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### Author:  [@garethrees](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/u/garethrees)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2022, 6:35pm UTC](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/t/shaping-document-examples/460/12 "2022-09-07T18:35:37Z")
Here are a couple I’ve done recently at varying sizes:
- [Generalised Notes (`Notable`) · Issue #7290 · mysociety/alaveteli · GitHub](https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/issues/7290)
- [Link news stories and articles to requests · Issue #5483 · mysociety/alaveteli · GitHub](https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/issues/5483)
- [Share private requests by link · Issue #5542 · mysociety/alaveteli · GitHub](https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/issues/5542)
- [Canned CensorRule redaction replacements · Issue #6487 · mysociety/alaveteli · GitHub](https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/issues/6487)
Sometimes, as we’re quite a small team, shaping can be more about nudging things forward a little at a time until a viable solution presents itself. In [this example](https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/issues/3477) the original suggestion (“something like the request categorisation game but for missing email addresses”) is quite a bit of work. Not something we had appetite for.
We’ve thought about it off and on over the years, but a few months back we had an idea for hacking _some version_ of it with some existing capability – 80% as good for 20% of the cost. As the hack uses a few existing and well known application concepts, I only [spiked out the novel parts](https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/issues/3477#issuecomment-1170951487) enough that I’d understood the unknowns and that I was confident that it would work and be doable in the small amount of time I wanted to spend [implementing it properly](https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/pull/7250).
The pitch doc is a means to an end. The thing that matters is being able to say “I know what I’m supposed to be doing, and I’m confident that I can do it within the amount of time I have to spend on it”.
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### Author:  [@garethrees](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/u/garethrees)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2022, 6:56pm UTC](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/t/shaping-document-examples/460/13 "2022-09-07T18:56:33Z")
Here’s another example. This one ended up being quite a big project and on reflection I’d have tried to split it up into entirely different projects and pitch documents, rather than presenting it all as one thing.
- [Challenging FOI Refusals · Issue #7291 · mysociety/alaveteli · GitHub](https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/issues/7291)
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### Author:  [@peter](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/u/peter)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2023, 10:05pm UTC](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/t/shaping-document-examples/460/14 "2023-08-25T22:05:51Z")
Hi @garethrees. Thank you for sharing! What tool are you using to fat markering?
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### Author:  [@garethrees](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/u/garethrees)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2023, 7:18am UTC](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/t/shaping-document-examples/460/15 "2023-08-26T07:18:52Z")
Ha, nothing fancy really. Most of those in the links above are [Pilot G2](https://www.pilotpen.co.uk/en/collections/must-have/g-2.html) on plain A4 printer paper or a [DotGrid](https://www.dotgrid.co/) notebook, scanned with [TurboScan](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/turboscan-document-scanner/id1017559099). While not technically “fat”, I don’t like the bleed of Sharpies through to the other side of the paper. It’s more about the spirit of “fat”, IYSWIM 😄. I’ve recently bought an iPad and have been using Freeform in a [really similar way](https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/issues/7771#issue-1760299881).
I’ve vaguely settled on a style of using blue ink for explanatory notes, and red for interaction/animation, but I don’t really give it much thought in the moment.
It’s not the only technique though.
Sometimes I’ll use [draw.io](https://www.drawio.com/) where I feel that the sketch style would get in the way of explaining a [more complicated](https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/issues/315#issuecomment-1256353993) piece, where [the UI text matters](https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/issues/7317#issue-1383587189) and helps convey the key concepts better.
Sometimes I’ll just [hack something](https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/issues/7528#issue-1548776364) into an existing UI using the browser web inspector. While it’s not “fat marker”, it’s often scrappy enough that it’s _clearly_ not going to be exactly what gets shipped; it’s just the quickest way to convey the gist of _a_ possible solution in the context.
Hope that helps 🙂.
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### Author:  [@nivertech](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/u/nivertech)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2023, 12:51pm UTC](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/t/shaping-document-examples/460/16 "2023-08-26T12:51:15Z")
> Budget: 15 days | Timebox: 6 weeks
interesting distinction between the Budget (billable/work time) and Timebox (calendar time).
It’s a standard thing for Consulting SoWs (Scope of Work), but it’s the first time I see it in the context of Shape Up.
I think Shape Up 1.0 has only the Apettite with a Circuit Breaker (usually the same 2wks or 6wks + 2wks cooldown to finish stuff in case overrun the build cycle). I understand in Shape 2.0 the build cycle can be of an arbitrary time, e.g. the actual length of the cycle is less important than the concept of fixed time / variable scope.
Is this your own customization of Shape Up?
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### Author:  [@nivertech](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/u/nivertech)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2023, 12:58pm UTC](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/t/shaping-document-examples/460/17 "2023-08-26T12:58:19Z")
Any examples of hand-off / scoping, i.e. decomposing a Shape Up pitch into lists of Scopes with optional TODOs/tasks?
In your examples there are mostly comments with GitHub issue taskslists and/or merged PRs.
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### Author:  [@garethrees](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/u/garethrees)
#### Post date: [August 28, 2023, 10:24am UTC](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/t/shaping-document-examples/460/18 "2023-08-28T10:24:53Z")
> Is this your own customization of Shape Up?
Though much of my thinking and direction of travel has been inspired by Ryan over the years, we have very different constraints to Basecamp (funding model, team size, success factors, etc). Some projects will suit themselves more to “Shape Up by the book”, some won’t, so I just pick and choose depending on what we’re doing at any given moment.
> interesting distinction between the Budget (billable/work time) and Timebox (calendar time).
IIRC, at the time we had some tricky scheduling issues, so it was trying to account for doing a few different projects at the same time with the same people. It may have been a mechanism for easing us in to thinking about hard cutoffs for work (circuit breakers), too – I can’t really remember. I don’t think I’ve used this since, but that’s not to say I wouldn’t in future.
> In your examples there are mostly comments with GitHub issue taskslists and/or merged PRs.
Yeah, these are real projects and what you see on GitHub is what actually happened. There’d have been a fair amount of verbal communication as the project went on and we demoed progress in video calls, which wouldn’t necessarily have been documented.
> Any examples of hand-off / scoping, i.e. decomposing a Shape Up pitch into lists of Scopes with optional TODOs/tasks?
I try to write the “pitches” (“packages” in more recent language) in such a way that makes it clear what we’re aiming at achieving, but I’m handing off to a senior programmer who’s been in the team for 5+ years, so I can write them knowing there’s a lot of contextual knowledge that I don’t have to cover.
Hand off is essentially just assigning the work in a planning session. He goes away and reads it, and then we usually talk through any questions and the outline of how to scope (though not necessarily in direct “shape up” language) in our regular 1:1.
The team will have an awareness of projects well before they’re shaped, so they won’t be seeing it for the first time at this handover stage. They’ll have seen the pitch/package being developed as I’ll be talking about progress from my ~“product management” perspective in our regular updates, catchups, etc.
While I’d like us to be a bit better at _documenting_ scope decomposition, it’s not that it doesn’t happen. The order of the commits/PRs is the result of the programmer figuring that out.
In terms of recorded todos/tasks, sometimes we do this, sometimes it’s more informal and verbal. “What do you think about X? Does it need a bit more? Later? Okay, will come back to that if we get time”. Given we’re such a close, small team, we don’t need as much formality there.
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### Author:  [@garethrees](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/u/garethrees)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2023, 6:34pm UTC](https://discourse.learnshapeup.com/t/shaping-document-examples/460/19 "2023-09-27T18:34:33Z")
Here’s another that Basecamp [made public](https://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/1691944192589873258) in conjunction with a [design review screencast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j74mQ_dDmuI):
[Group @mentions in the Hey! menu](https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/4TemZcvY5sEiTrgFqtTpvmMg).