Stage 2 · Lesson 2 of 8
Shaping and cutting scope
Shaping means deciding how much a problem is worth before deciding the solution. The method calls this appetite. You fix the time, for example six weeks, and let the bend to fit it.
early and in the open is the other half. Drop the nice-to-haves, handle rare by hand at launch, or ship to one group of customers first. A smaller plan announced in week two costs far less trust than a missed date announced in week eight. To cut well, you need to know which parts carry the value and which are decoration.
Common traptreating the first plan as a promise and quietly working weekends to hold it, which hides the real cost from everyone who could have helped decide.
A question to check yourself, an AI practice session and 2 cheat sheet entries come with the full roadmap. Unlock
Resources for this stage
Start with· follow one of these
- BookFreeShape Up
Ryan Singer, Basecamp · Intermediate
Free book on shaping and scoping work so projects actually finish
- BookFreeGoogle Site Reliability Engineering Book
Google · Advanced
The chapters on managing incidents and blameless postmortem culture