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# Shaping Up: Rethinking Product Development with Basecamp's Shape Up Methodology


- **Date:** Thursday, Jul 10, 2025
- **Time:** 14:50–15:20 (30 min)
- **Room:** Stage 5
- **Event:** World Congress 2025

## Recording

[Watch recording](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1588-shaping-up-rethinking-product-development-with-basecamp-s-shape-up-methodology)

## Description

In this talk, I would like to share lessons learned on how we introduced Shape Up. Shape Up is an alternative product development methodology pioneered by Basecamp, designed to address the pitfalls of traditional agile and waterfall approaches. The session dives into how Shape Up structures work in six-week cycles, promotes empowered teams, and minimizes the chaos of backlogs and constant reprioritization.
We'll walk through our journey implementing Shape Up. Why we made the switch, how we adapted the principles to our organization, and what lessons we learned along the way. You'll gain insights into how shaping, betting, and building work together to create more meaningful and autonomous delivery cycles.

## Speaker

### [Sebastian Gierlinger](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/@sebastian-gierlinger)

VP of Engineering at Storyblok


## Related talks at this congress

- [ShapeShift: Reinventing Agile for a B2B SaaS Scale-Up](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2025/sessions/577-shapeshift) — Milton Leon Rodriguez
- [You get what you define - Backlog Refinement](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2025/sessions/483-you-get-what-you) — Arjan Brands
- [Transforming Task Management: Integrating Camunda with Scalable Frontend Solutions](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2025/sessions/610-transforming-task) — Kevin Kaiser, Ludwig Wrabel
- [Why (most) software projects fail silently...](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2025/sessions/669-why-most-software) — Hendrik Lösch