Betting Table
A Shape Up planning meeting where stakeholders choose which shaped pitches to commit the next cycle to, treating each project as a bet rather than a backlog item.
Also known as: The Betting Table, Bets Not Backlogs, Betting (Shape Up)
Category: Techniques
Tags: project-management, product-management, decision-making, prioritization, planning
Explanation
The Betting Table is the decision meeting in Shape Up, held during the cool-down between six-week cycles. A small group of senior stakeholders reviews the pitches that have been shaped and decides which ones to bet the next cycle on.
## How It Works
- **Only shaped work is considered**: Each pitch defines a problem, an appetite, a rough solution, and known risks.
- **No backlog**: There is no ever-growing queue of ideas. Pitches that are not chosen are not automatically kept. Anyone can track ideas they care about, and important ones come back.
- **Bets, not plans**: Choosing a pitch is a bet with a bounded downside. The worst case is losing one cycle, because of the circuit breaker: unfinished projects are not extended automatically.
- **Uninterrupted time**: Once a bet is placed, the team gets the whole cycle without being pulled onto other work.
- **Short and decisive**: The meeting is meant to be fast, because the hard work happened during shaping.
## Why Framing Work as Bets Helps
- It acknowledges uncertainty: some bets won't pay off, and that's acceptable.
- It caps risk: you never commit more than one cycle without re-evaluating.
- It forces explicit choices: saying yes to one pitch means saying no to others.
- It avoids backlog debt: grooming hundreds of stale items is waste.
## Personal Version
At the start of each month or quarter, review the candidate projects you have shaped, choose a few to bet on, and let the rest go without guilt. Revisit at the next cycle.
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