Ryan Singer
- Product from concept to build
- Creator of Shape Up
- 20+ Years in Design, Code, Strategy
- Former Head of Strategy at 37signals
Work With Me
- Drive Product End-To-End — I lead product efforts hands-on from concept through execution. I work with partners who have a clear-eyed view of their strategy and opportunities but struggle with the idea-to-execution gap. My strength is simplifying problems into clear product concepts and working with engineers to make them real.
- Shaping Sessions — For teams trying to improve their Shape Up-inspired workflow, the fastest way to learn is to dive into the shaping phase of a real project together. A three-hour Shaping Session exposes your team to what "good" looks like while making a jump in clarity on a specific project.
- Founder/C-level Advice — Need guidance? Drop me a note with some background and we can set up a call to talk through what's going on and I'll suggest some ways to make progress.
Shape Up
Shape Up is a way of working that creates clarity and autonomy with fewer meetings and rituals. It's an alternative to scrum for growing startups who need structure but don't want to slow down. I wrote the book in 2019 to formalize how we did product development during my time at 37signals.
- Get the book
- Listen to the episode on Lenny's Podcast
- End-to-End with Shape Up — A real-world case study
Interview on Lenny's Podcast
Shaping in Real Life Series
The book Shape Up describes how the team at Basecamp worked. They are different from other companies in many ways (eg. all designers who code, hands-on technical founders, etc). But the core principles remain true, and I've helped a wide variety of real-world teams to adopt Shape Up.
Doing this revealed many things that were unspoken at Basecamp or too often misunderstood. I started formalizing these discoveries into skills, terminology, and parameters to customize the framework. First I taught this as an online course. Now I'm starting to share it widely in the form of the Shaping in Real Life Series.
A case study showing what Shape Up looks like on real-world teams today
- Common pitfalls when adopting Shape Up (and how to avoid them)
- What's the right level of detail when shaping?
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