So you want to do agile? What does that entail? Read The Agile Manifesto? The website that contains it has that weird background that makes the people in it look like Jesus giving a sermon in some watercolor painting. Sign up for agile coaching? Get ready to spend a whole lot of money on a guy to tell you all about becoming a Scrum Master. Agile was never about codifying a system. It was a bunch of guys sick to death of the waterfall. That simple declaration of "waterfall bad" has become an industry that just barely changes waterfall and doesn't make anything better.

Adopting agile isn't a change in mindset. It's a tool change. If you want to make real change, it comes from within, not from without. Shape Up is an approach that requires you to change how you think about work, project management, and how to frame your expectations of both. You don't need a litany of tools (but Basecamp is essentially built to facilitate Shape Up)—you need to reframe your outlook on work. That's a much harder sell that a new kanban service or silly coaching.