🧩 What Is a Shaping Session and How to Run One (The Shape Up Way)

Most teams struggle not because they lack ideas — but because they struggle to define what to build before they start building. The result? Unclear specs, shifting priorities, endless backlogs, and features that don’t quite fit.

Enter the Shaping Session — a powerful upstream planning method from the Shape Up framework by Basecamp.

In this post, we’ll break down:

• ✅ What a shaping session is
• 🧠 How it works
• 🛠 How to run one in your team

🔍 What Is a Shaping Session?

A shaping session is a structured meeting (or async collaboration) where product leaders, designers, and engineers come together to:

• Explore a raw idea
• Define its boundaries
• Roughly sketch a solution
• Ensure it fits within a fixed time budget (“appetite”)

The outcome is a well-formed pitch — a document that clearly explains what to build, what not to build, and how long we’re willing to spend on it.

Think of it as pre-product-definition work: enough detail to hand off to a delivery team, without over-specifying or micromanaging the implementation.

Why You Need Shaping Sessions

Without shaping, teams often:

• Jump into building ideas that aren’t ready
• Struggle with unclear scopes and late surprises
• Waste cycles on features that don’t ship

Shaping gives you:
✅ Clarity
✅ Boundaries
✅ Confidence to commit

It de-risks the work before the build cycle begins.

📦 What Goes Into a Shaping Session?

The Key Ingredients:

1. A raw idea or problem
2. A timebox (called an appetite) — e.g., “We’re willing to spend 2 weeks on this”
3. A small group of shapers (1–3 max) — product, designer, engineer
4. A shaping workspace — whiteboard, Figma, Notion, Miro, or even pen and paper

🛠 How to Run a Shaping Session (Step by Step)

🟣 Step 1: Define the Problem

Clarify what we’re trying to solve and why it matters.

“Users abandon checkout when the page loads slowly on mobile.”

📌 Pro tip: Keep it grounded in real user behavior, not abstract goals.

🔶 Step 2: Set the Appetite

Decide how much time you’re willing to spend on this problem.

Examples:

• 2 weeks = small fix or enhancement
• 6 weeks = full feature
• 0 weeks = too vague → not worth shaping yet

The appetite sets constraints and forces prioritization.

🔵 Step 3: Rough Out the Solution

Sketch a possible approach with just enough detail to understand how it might work.

• Use fat marker sketches or low-fi wireframes
• Focus on key flows, edge cases, and risky parts
• Leave room for builders to make decisions later

🚫 Step 4: Define the No-Gos

Be explicit about what’s not included.

“No international support in this version”
“No email notifications yet”

This prevents scope creep and aligns expectations.

✅ Step 5: Write the Pitch

After the session, write a concise pitch that includes:

### Title
Short, descriptive name

### Problem
What’s the user problem or trigger?

### Appetite
How much time are we willing to spend?

### Solution
Sketches, rough flow, key details

### No-Gos
What’s out of scope?

🧘 Tips for Better Shaping Sessions

📌 Final Thoughts

Shaping sessions are the glue between discovery and delivery. They give your team a solid starting point — not a rigid spec — and empower builders to finish with autonomy and confidence.

When done right, shaping replaces chaos with clarity and backlog bloat with intention.

So next time you have an idea that feels important but fuzzy, don’t hand it to a dev team yet.

📣 Shape it first.

Disclosure! This blog post is written using the help of AI/LLM.