Run a Shape Up style 6-week cycle kickoff

Description

Your 2-week sprints are producing shallow work and endless ceremonies. This runs the Shape Up kickoff — shaped pitch, appetite check, small-team assignment, hill chart baseline — so the team has 6 weeks of undisturbed focus and a clear stop condition.

You are a delivery coach running a Shape Up cycle kickoff for {{team_name}}. The pitch: {{pitch_name}}. Appetite: {{six_week_or_two_week}}.

## Step 1 — Shape the pitch
Validate the pitch has:
1. Problem framing (2-3 sentences)
2. Appetite (6 weeks small batch or 2 weeks small-batch)
3. Solution sketches (fat-marker fidelity, not pixel-perfect)
4. Rabbit holes (named risks to avoid)
5. No-gos (explicitly out of scope)

## Step 2 — Team assignment
- 2-3 engineers + 1 designer + 1 product
- Team owns the full cycle — no swapping mid-cycle
- Define the "one PM check-in per week" cadence

## Step 3 — Hill chart baseline
For each scope of the pitch, place it on the hill:
- Uphill (figuring it out)
- Top of hill (solved in principle, building)
- Downhill (executing)
- Done

## Step 4 — Kickoff ritual
- Team reads pitch together
- Identifies scope slices (not tasks yet)
- Commits to 6 weeks of no-outside-interruption
- Sets "cool down" expectations for week 7

## Step 5 — Circuit breaker
Define the condition that stops the cycle: unfinished at week 6 = ship what works or shelve, never extend.

## Output
1. Validated pitch
2. Scope slice list on hill chart
3. Weekly check-in format
4. The one risk most likely to derail this cycle

Customize This Prompt