This writing piece is part of my ongoing journey to becoming familiarized with the Shape Up software development methodology. The video to be summarized is called "Shape Up Principle: Writing a Pitch" and it is from 37Signals' REWORK podcast. The 27-minute episode primarily discusses the concept of pitch writing and business practices that should be considered in the dev rooms.

In the episode, a pitch is presented as an 800-word directive document, detailing an idea, and why it is needed. A pitch, like the tale of Goldilocks, should include a balance of abstract and concrete information in order to have boundaries, as well as reasonable opportunity for flexibility in problem-solving within defined budgets (in effort, time and cost).

Pitches are often written by designated personnel; however, ideas can come from anybody and anywhere. For instance, customers can describe their problems but struggle to present a solution idea that removes the problem while improving both the business and the end-user experience. So, technical experts need to access the problems and explore to spot similarities and underlying patterns that could build a compelling pitch. The team will then execute the pitch's vision and implement it into an actual solution.

Creating pitches necessitates immense awareness and technical context about how to solve the problem at hand, given bounded constraints. The podcast requires a high proficiency in autonomy, mastery and purpose that assist in the most optimal manner in reaching goals as well as rejecting ideas that are not in the best interest of the company's trajectory.

The podcast goes on to discuss practices in avoiding rabbit holes. Rabbit holes are appealing/tempting features of a project that are overly complex or time-consuming. Detecting rabbit holes is vital in allowing the team to allocate attention and time to focus on other components. The podcast introduces terminology such as a science project, which is used to describe an idea that is a total rabbit hole with no feasibility and a waste of resources.