I am reading "Shape Up" in the sunshine out on our deck.
One editorial choice I noticed and like, preferring simple words and clear explanation over jargon. The author could have used the term, opportunity cost, but didn't. They pithily described it instead, in about six words.
I think that choice for plain language is making the book faster to read and easier to internalize.
"Try to keep the clay wet." This book is literally speaking my language. I regularly use the metaphor of the nonsnse of trying to change a clay pot after it has been fired. That and leaving dross on the die, from lean manufacturing/TQM, that is only fix as much of the design as needed at each step so each following step still has some freedom to adjust and adapt.
I like that the first step in shaping described in "Shape Up" is setting boundaries. I think it helps reinforce that the process is always trying to navigate many, many constraints.
So many projects I've been on start with the software version of assuming a perfectly spherical cow of uniform density on a featureless, frictionless plain. Then struggle to squeeze that into any practical way of working after.
No wonder why most software projects eventually fail.
I may get a small "fixed time, variable scope" tattoo. I've felt this idea as a guiding principle more and more strongly over the years. I am glad to finally see a tech book explain it so clearly and even better reveal why it can be a better way to approach scoping effort of pieces of a project.
The inversion "appetite" represents is novel to me but tracks. As opposed to starting with a usually unconstrained design and struggling to produce a useful estimate for it.
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