The guide
Shape Up for client work
Eight short chapters. The first explains what breaks when you take the book to a client. The rest cover the adaptations, in roughly the order a project meets them.
- 1 Why the book’s assumptions break on client work Shape Up was written by a product company about its own product. Four assumptions underneath it do not hold when the work is for a client.
- 2 Shaping with a client Shaping is the work you do before anyone commits to build. On client work it is also the sales conversation, and that changes who has to be in the room.
- 3 Turning a budget into an appetite A client says “we have forty thousand dollars.” Shape Up wants to know how much time the problem is worth. Those are the same conversation if you set it up carefully.
- 4 The betting table as a client meeting At Basecamp the betting table is a short meeting of senior people choosing what to build next. With a client, it becomes the meeting where the relationship either works or does not.
- 5 Six-week cycles versus retainers and fixed bids Most agencies already sell one of three things: hours, a fixed bid or a monthly retainer. A six-week cycle fits inside each of them with small changes to what the contract promises.
- 6 Cool-downs when the client is paying Cool-down is the easiest part of Shape Up to love and the hardest to explain to someone paying by the week.
- 7 Hill charts as the status report A status report that lists percentages tells a client very little. A hill chart tells them whether the team is still figuring things out or just executing.
- 8 What to do when the client wants a Gantt chart Sooner or later a client asks for a Gantt chart. Saying no tends to land badly. Giving them one you do not believe is worse.
How to read it
Read the book first if you have not. It is free and short. These chapters assume you know what a pitch, an appetite and a cycle are, and each links to the matching chapter of the book.
The guide is one practitioner’s adaptation. Other shops run the method differently, and the directory links to their accounts so you can compare.