Kozminski Techblog

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Software Is Eating the World

Marc Andreessen

At the beginning of 10’s, Marc Andreessen (General partner at Andreessen Horowitz) stated that ‘Software Is Eating the World’ [1] – what happened to be true in the past decade. How is it going to be with 20’s decade? There’s a big unknow but so far it’s seems it’s going to be similar.

Creating digital software plays a crucial role in E-Economy. Over the years a lot of frameworks had been developed on how to develop a software in the most efficient ways.

What is a framework?

According to Cambridge Dictionary, the framework is ‘a supporting structure around which something can be built’ [2].

Sprint framework

A two world-wide known frameworks are:

• Agile – ‘include requirements, discovery and solutions improvement through the collaborative effort of self-organizing and cross-functional teams with their customer(s)/end user(s)’ [3].
• Scrum – ‘scrum prescribes for teams to break work into goals to be completed within time-boxed iterations, called sprints. Each sprint is no longer than one month and commonly lasts two weeks’ [4]

So scrum team strives to accomplish a certain amount of work within a brief, time-boxed period known as a sprint. Agile and scrum approaches revolve around sprints, and a well-executed sprint will enable your agile team to deliver better product with fewer difficulties.

Basecamp framework

However some people found out that ‘sprints were ok as they were shipping stuff at a decent velocity, but there were cracks showing in the process – especially as when Foresight Group raised (raised $39M Series B) and experienced hypergrowth, they knew there had to be a better way to ship the most impactful features for their users and business’. [5]

Shape is a six-week cycles

There are six-week cycles to the work. Six weeks is just enough time to construct anything significant from beginning to end, but it’s also not so lengthy that everyone doesn’t sense the impending deadline and makes good use of their time. In a single six-week cycle, the objective is to construct, test, and release.

Shape Up differs from Agile procedures in that it fixes a time to release a portion of work to customers and concentrates on “shaping” work into that window of time, as opposed to Agile methods where the team splits a huge body of work down into smaller sprint-sized pieces and begins building them. Teams are now expected to swarm a project together and give it their whole concentration to see it through to completion rather than juggling numerous things at once.

Teams are developing previously shaped work within any six-week cycle, while shapers—product managers and designers—are working on what the teams can possibly produce in subsequent cycles.

Two tracks when in-cycle (6 weeks):

1. Building: Uninterrupted work on approved pitches
2. Shaping: Gathering requirements for the next cycle [6].

Few one of the most important assumptions of Basecamp’s framework [7]:

1. Six-Week Cycles: A Framework for Focus
2. Big Batch, Small Batch: Prioritization and Efficiency
3. Pitches: Defining and Betting on Work
4. Vertical Slices: Building and Integrating
5. Making Teams Responsible for Their Work
6. Metrics for Outcome, Not Hours
7. Shape Up in Practice: Delivering Meaningful Work

Summary

To sum up, Agile & Scrum & Sprints frameworks have been working since 00’s but in order to produce modern software, companies should develop new 20’s frameworks. That’s how Basecamp framework had been created. Basecamp’s Shape Up methodology stands as a testament to the power of a well-structured approach to product development. By emphasizing focus, autonomy, and the delivery of valuable workIn my opinion, logically it really make sense but we should wait for more companies to implement it and we will see a resoults.

1. https://a16z.com/why-software-is-eating-the-world/
2. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/framework#google_vignette
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(software_development)
5. https://medium.com/adventures-in-consumer-technology/why-we-transitioned-from-sprints-to-basecamps-shape-up-f416114224e7
6. Image: https://medium.com/adventures-in-consumer-technology/why-we-transitioned-from-sprints-to-basecamps-shape-up-f416114224e7
7. https://basecamp.com/shapeup