Scaling platform adoption: The Shape-Up method in action

Phyllis Noester will share zolar’s journey in addressing one of the company’s biggest challenges: platform adoption. Initially, the team struggled with aligning platform engineering efforts to organization-wide planning rituals, such as OKRs, which hindered their ability to respond to the evolving needs of developers. This led to slower platform adaptation, reduced developer experience, and delayed feature delivery. To overcome these challenges, the platform team implemented a planning framework inspired by Basecamp’s Shape-Up methodology. This approach allowed them to balance long-term strategy with just-in-time prioritization, delivering features to developers when they needed them most. This session will discuss how zolar’s platform team significantly improved adoption, strengthened relationships with developers, and enhanced the platform’s overall effectiveness in driving business outcomes.