5 ms·

How we structure our work and teams at Basecamp

130 points by becewumuy 10y ago

purplecpa 10y ago
You forgot the part about running people with different political opinions out the door
- sctb 10y ago
  We ask that you please don't introduce political controversy into unrelated threads, it ruins them for everyone.
  - dmarlow 10y ago
    Honest question, how is it unrelated? We saw it happen at Mozilla and I think it's part of the underlying divisiveness that plagues our country.
    - GavinMcG 10y ago
      What does it have to do with the structure of work and teams?
    - sctb 10y ago
      What you said can be true and the parent still not be a good comment for HN. It's off-topic because 1) the guidelines say politics are off-topic, 2) the guidelines ask us not to introduce flamewar topics without anything new to say, and 3) this article is not about that.
- betabob2 10y ago
  Does this really occur at Basecamp or is this hearsay?
  - whybroke 10y ago
    An org publicly posted it's inner process for the benefit of the industry and was attacked randomly by a political extremist without regard for truth, damage to that org or damage to the core value of this site. I'm sure I'll be called oppressing purplecpa's free speech just for pointing this out but no, Basecamp is not oppressive.
dbg31415 10y ago
Is it 2005 again? Someone please remind me how Basecamp is relevant? It's a closed system that doesn't play nicely integrating with anything else... near as I know still doesn't have a Kanban board... or file versions... and search is still pretty terrifying.
- dangoor 10y ago
  I found the article to be an interesting look into an approach to project management at a small, successful software product shop. You may not find Basecamp relevant, but they still offer a service that people pay for 10+ years after they started. How many of the Kanban board-based project management tools that exist today will still be around in 10 years?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - dbg31415 10y ago
    Their strategy... TL;DR: They dig in like ticks with marketing folks and saddle everyone else with dated and inefficient tools. The make integrations next to impossible, exports messy, and seemingly strive to fracture teams by providing duplicate services to tools like Slack, Asana, JIRA, GitHub... etc... that all do everything Basecamp does, but better, AND also offer integrations so all your teams can play nice and work seamlessly. Basecamp is cancer. I'd be surprised if they're still around in 10 years if they don't open their platform up and make it easy to swap components in and out of their closed system. If a team already has Slack, or Skype, or Flowdock, or HipChat, or Fleep... or any of the other 200 chat tools... now with one instance of Basecamp introduce to a team they also have to check that system for messages from the one team that uses Basecamp in their company. Not even sure you can turn that feature off... but it's inefficient to not have integrations. "One-solution-fits-all" is dead, open APIs and modular tools lead to happy teams.
    - beejiu 10y ago
      I don't know enough about Basecamp, so I cannot comment on their product. But, that aside, your comment is not fair. You make it sound like competing with other products (even if they are better, in your opinion) is somehow malicious. Using terms like 'tick' and 'cancer' is just not appropriate.
thedoops 10y ago
Fantastic article. I find the idea of cycles being pretty core to this. Jason mentioned it in more detail in a comment below, but the fact a stakeholder can't sway an ongoing project until its cycle is finished is huge. I work on a small team building IT and IS infrastructure for a very sales-oriented business. Stakeholders are always throwing in a new twist at what feels like the most inopportune times. If we could tell them we'll consider it on the next formalized cycle that would be huge for preventing redirections. Stakeholders may not acknowledge it themselves, but they care less about what gets done and more about when. Closing that feedback loop we always be more effective than feature creeping a project into oblivion.
zackkitzmiller 10y ago
It's strange to me that all projects have a designer and the designer leads the project management.
- erikpukinskis 10y ago
  Why? Design (in the ideal) is about making things actually achieve the outcome they are supposed to. It subsumes all other product work.
mattei 10y ago
The concept of large and small pieces of work, and having developers rotate between them in naturally forming teams I found to be excellent for morale and hence productivity. Also once a cycle is locked in, it's rarely adjusted. And no timesheets. Really basic things that IMO Basecamp is doing a great job advocating for in an industry that still needs it.
combatentropy 10y ago
Ever since Getting Real (https://gettingreal.37signals.com/ https://gettingreal.37signals.com/) I've agreed with practically everything Jason Fried has ever said. Wish there were more CEOs like him.

130 points by becewumuy 10y ago

purplecpa 10y ago

You forgot the part about running people with different political opinions out the door

sctb 10y ago
We ask that you please don't introduce political controversy into unrelated threads, it ruins them for everyone.
- dmarlow 10y ago
  Honest question, how is it unrelated? We saw it happen at Mozilla and I think it's part of the underlying divisiveness that plagues our country.
  - GavinMcG 10y ago
    What does it have to do with the structure of work and teams?
  - sctb 10y ago
    What you said can be true and the parent still not be a good comment for HN. It's off-topic because 1) the guidelines say politics are off-topic, 2) the guidelines ask us not to introduce flamewar topics without anything new to say, and 3) this article is not about that.
betabob2 10y ago
Does this really occur at Basecamp or is this hearsay?
- whybroke 10y ago
  An org publicly posted it's inner process for the benefit of the industry and was attacked randomly by a political extremist without regard for truth, damage to that org or damage to the core value of this site. I'm sure I'll be called oppressing purplecpa's free speech just for pointing this out but no, Basecamp is not oppressive.

dbg31415 10y ago

Is it 2005 again? Someone please remind me how Basecamp is relevant? It's a closed system that doesn't play nicely integrating with anything else... near as I know still doesn't have a Kanban board... or file versions... and search is still pretty terrifying.

dangoor 10y ago
I found the article to be an interesting look into an approach to project management at a small, successful software product shop. You may not find Basecamp relevant, but they still offer a service that people pay for 10+ years after they started. How many of the Kanban board-based project management tools that exist today will still be around in 10 years?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- dbg31415 10y ago
  Their strategy... TL;DR: They dig in like ticks with marketing folks and saddle everyone else with dated and inefficient tools. The make integrations next to impossible, exports messy, and seemingly strive to fracture teams by providing duplicate services to tools like Slack, Asana, JIRA, GitHub... etc... that all do everything Basecamp does, but better, AND also offer integrations so all your teams can play nice and work seamlessly. Basecamp is cancer. I'd be surprised if they're still around in 10 years if they don't open their platform up and make it easy to swap components in and out of their closed system. If a team already has Slack, or Skype, or Flowdock, or HipChat, or Fleep... or any of the other 200 chat tools... now with one instance of Basecamp introduce to a team they also have to check that system for messages from the one team that uses Basecamp in their company. Not even sure you can turn that feature off... but it's inefficient to not have integrations. "One-solution-fits-all" is dead, open APIs and modular tools lead to happy teams.
  - beejiu 10y ago
    I don't know enough about Basecamp, so I cannot comment on their product. But, that aside, your comment is not fair. You make it sound like competing with other products (even if they are better, in your opinion) is somehow malicious. Using terms like 'tick' and 'cancer' is just not appropriate.

thedoops 10y ago

Fantastic article. I find the idea of cycles being pretty core to this. Jason mentioned it in more detail in a comment below, but the fact a stakeholder can't sway an ongoing project until its cycle is finished is huge. I work on a small team building IT and IS infrastructure for a very sales-oriented business. Stakeholders are always throwing in a new twist at what feels like the most inopportune times. If we could tell them we'll consider it on the next formalized cycle that would be huge for preventing redirections. Stakeholders may not acknowledge it themselves, but they care less about what gets done and more about when. Closing that feedback loop we always be more effective than feature creeping a project into oblivion.

zackkitzmiller 10y ago

It's strange to me that all projects have a designer and the designer leads the project management.

erikpukinskis 10y ago
Why? Design (in the ideal) is about making things actually achieve the outcome they are supposed to. It subsumes all other product work.

mattei 10y ago

The concept of large and small pieces of work, and having developers rotate between them in naturally forming teams I found to be excellent for morale and hence productivity. Also once a cycle is locked in, it's rarely adjusted. And no timesheets. Really basic things that IMO Basecamp is doing a great job advocating for in an industry that still needs it.

combatentropy 10y ago

Ever since Getting Real (https://gettingreal.37signals.com/ https://gettingreal.37signals.com/) I've agreed with practically everything Jason Fried has ever said. Wish there were more CEOs like him.