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Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters

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Introduction

• Chapter 1

  Introduction

  • Growing pains
  • Six-week cycles
  • Shaping the work
  • Making teams responsible
  • Targeting risk
  • How this book is organized

Part 1: Shaping

• Chapter 2

  Principles of Shaping

  • Wireframes are too concrete
  • Words are too abstract
  • Case study: The Dot Grid Calendar
  • Property 1: It’s rough
  • Property 2: It’s solved
  • Property 3: It’s bounded
  • Who shapes
  • Two tracks
  • Steps to shaping

• Chapter 3

  Set Boundaries

  • Setting the appetite
  • Fixed time, variable scope
  • "Good" is relative
  • Responding to raw ideas
  • Narrow down the problem
  • Case study: Defining "calendar"
  • Watch out for grab-bags
  • Boundaries in place

• Chapter 4

  Find the Elements

  • Move at the right speed
  • Breadboarding
  • Fat marker sketches
  • Elements are the output
  • Room for designers
  • Not deliverable yet
  • No conveyor belt

• Chapter 5

  Risks and Rabbit Holes

  • Different categories of risk
  • Look for rabbit holes
  • Case study: Patching a hole
  • Declare out of bounds
  • Cut back
  • Present to technical experts
  • De-risked and ready to write up

• Chapter 6

  Write the Pitch

  • Ingredient 1. Problem
  • Ingredient 2. Appetite
  • Ingredient 3. Solution
  • Help them see it
  • Embedded sketches
  • Annotated fat marker sketches
  • Ingredient 4. Rabbit Holes
  • Ingredient 5. No Gos
  • Examples
  • Ready to present
  • How we do it in Basecamp

Part 2: Betting

• Chapter 7

  Bets, Not Backlogs

  • No backlogs
  • A few potential bets
  • Decentralized lists
  • Important ideas come back

• Chapter 8

  The Betting Table

  • Six-week cycles
  • Cool-down
  • Team and project size
  • The betting table
  • The meaning of a bet
  • Uninterrupted time
  • The circuit breaker
  • What about bugs?
  • Keep the slate clean

• Chapter 9

  Place Your Bets

  • Look where you are
  • Existing products
  • New products
  • R&D mode
  • Production mode
  • Cleanup mode
  • Examples
  • Questions to ask
  • Does the problem matter?
  • Is the appetite right?
  • Is the solution attractive?
  • Is this the right time?
  • Are the right people available?
  • Post the kick-off message

Part 3: Building

• Chapter 10