Ryan Singer
Ryan Singer is one of the earliest employees and the former Head of Strategy at 37signals (the makers of Basecamp), where he spent nearly two decades refining a product development approach that helped the company build super-successful products with small teams. Based on these lessons, he wrote "Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters," and Ryan now works with companies of all sizes to them them escape the cycle of endless sprints, missed deadlines, and dragging projects.
Building & Shipping Skills
Use intense shaping sessions with engineering, product, and design to create a shared, concrete understanding of a project's boundaries before development begins.
"What we need to do in a shaping session is we come out with some kind of diagram where engineers, product and design, they're saying, "We understand that." So the first thing is we are not going to st..."
Regain shipping momentum by defining projects based on the time you are willing to spend rather than estimating the time a large concept might take.
"We're going to go the other way around and we're going to say, what is the maximum amount of time we're willing to go before we actually finish something? How do we come up with a idea that's going to..."
Planning & Prioritization Skills
Instead of asking how long an idea will take to build, determine the fixed amount of time the business is willing to invest and shape the solution to fit that window.
"We're not going to take a big concept and then say, "What's the estimate for this thing?" We're going to go the other way around and we're going to say, what is the maximum amount of time we're willin..."
Identifying hidden technical complexities and architectural "rabbit holes" during the shaping phase prevents projects from blowing up once development starts.
"I often use this analogy of if you're doing a home renovation, you can have the most beautiful rendering of the new bedroom and we're going to have these lamps on the side of the bed that are coming o..."