37signals-way

A shaped pitch has five elements: problem, appetite, solution, rabbit holes, and no-gos. Set the appetite first as a time budget, sketch the solution with breadboards or fat marker sketches, then explicitly list risks and exclusions before bringing it to the betting table.

Appetite asks how much time a problem is worth, which is a strategic decision made before a solution exists. Estimation asks how long work will take, which produces guesses that grow under pressure. Appetite constrains the solution instead of letting the solution dictate the timeline.

Hill charts place each named scope on a hill where uphill means figuring things out and downhill means executing known work. Teams update dot positions twice a week asynchronously, making stuck scopes visible without daily status meetings or misleading percentage-complete reports.

Invoke the circuit breaker when a six-week cycle ends with significant unfinished work, the core approach proved wrong, or the team is grinding without momentum. The project pauses and must be re-shaped and re-bet rather than receiving an automatic extension.

The method fits small teams building opinionated products with fixed-time cycles. It is harder to apply when work requires large coordinated teams, regulatory deadlines with fixed scope, or exploratory research where the problem itself is not yet understood.