As I wander the corridors of various organisations, the biggest change over the last few years is the proliferation of post it notes.  The arrival of agile (I’ve skipped the obligatory quote marks) has meant, for all too many, an endless purgatory of discovery and occasional alpha, but more likely, just more discovery.  The incentive to ship, to put something live, seems to have gone away.  Not for everyone, of course, but for a disquietingly large proportion of the organisations I see.

I read that £1 spent on R&D has had an ever decreasing output over the last decade – that is, to get what you used to get for £1, you now need to spend £1.50 or £2 (making all of those comparisons of R&D spend over time rather pointless – the input is never as important as the output).

It feels the same in Public Sector software development.  We have lots more projects and lots more activity, but fewer teams shipping.  The money in is doubtless rising, the productive consequences, unless measured in post it notes, are falling.

I was intrigued, then, to read about Shape Up.  The world doesn’t need another methodology, and this isn’t one.  Instead, this is a guide to shipping.

Six week cycles, shape the work before giving it to the team, give that team full responsibility, look for the hard problems to solve first, and ship on time.

They’re candid that this is a way to help you avoid shipping late, not to avoid shipping the wrong thing – that’s a different process.

It looks good.

Original source – In The Eye Of The Storm

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