Over the last year, we have come up with our own way of working at Joyous. We call it working Joyfully. We didn't set out to come up with something different. There simply isn't an existing way of working that feels good to us.

As a software product and engineering team, some of us have used Waterfall and Agile Scrum at previous companies. We also tried Kanban and Shape Up at Joyous.

Here are the pros and cons of other methodologies

Waterfall offers a clear structure, defines the end goal early with clean handoffs. It also makes changes difficult, excludes the customer, and delays testing.

Scrum is more collaborative, delivers value often, and makes it easy to change. Longer term, sprints are exhausting, can lead to scope creep, and is challenging at scale.

Kanban is flexible, transparent, and boards help keep everyone on the same page. A lack of clear timeframes, out of date boards or complex boards can lead to poor outcomes.

Shape Up sets clear boundaries on appetite and scope. It allows small teams to deliver sizeable pieces of work without much admin. Low fidelity designs can lead to misunderstandings and it isn't suitable for projects with large unknowns or technical projects.

Joyfully (the book) is divided into three major parts:

• Part 1: Strategy and alignment
• Part 2: Relationships and team structure
• Part 3: Our process for defining, designing and building features

Joyfully is not perfect, nor finished, but it is working well for us. Where we have ended up is quite different from other ways of working.

Our hope is that you might include parts of what we do as you shape your own way of working. We want more product teams to codify and share their ways of working. Not only will this benefit your own team, but others too.

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