Shape up

It was quite a hot and stuffy day. The room in which I work got very warm and, by the end of the day, it was feeling a bit uncomfortable.  It’s wasn’t excessively, overwhelmingly, hot but it was hot and sticky. And outside looked cool and refreshing so I spent an hour or so outside reading and writing. It really would be lovely to be able to work outside more often. I may aim for that in my new job.

Inspired by reading the Agile Comms Handbook a few weeks ago, I finally got round to reading a book recommended by our Chief Product Officer. The book, Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters from the makers of Basecamp, is an insight into how Basecamp builds products. It would be quite nice to work in six week cycles, shipping useful things and without the relentless burden of backlogs, sprint meetings (I really can’t bring myself to say ‘ceremonies’) and QA shenanigans.

It was timely that Shape Up devotes a section to QA which includes, "Therefore we think of QA as a level-up, not a gate or a check-point that all work must go through. We’re much better off with QA than without it. But we don’t depend on QA to ship quality features that work as they should."


After I’d been outside reading and writing, I came in to start dinner. PY went for a run, putting me to shame about my lack of exercise today. I don’t know why the work email bothered me so much but it did and put a damper on my enthusiasm for anything. So I made dinner.  We’d received a large marrow in the weekly Oddbox vegetable delivery and, when hunting around for something to make with them, I found Spanish stuffed marrow which was delicious. And, for some reason, put me back in a good mood as we ate it outside as it went dark.