
## Introduction: The Quest for Better Project Visibility
Burndown charts have long been the go-to visualization in Agile project management. They offer a simple way to track how much work remains over time. But as teams evolve, especially those practicing Shape Up or managing R&D-heavy projects, traditional burndowns often fall short.

Enter the hill chart: a tool created by Basecamp and now used by Shape Up teams to better visualize uncertainty and progress. In this article, we'll explore why burndown charts can be misleading, how hill charts work, and how modern teams can use them to track what truly matters.

## What Is a Burndown Chart?
A burndown chart is a line chart showing the amount of work left in a sprint or project over time. The horizontal axis represents time, and the vertical axis represents remaining work (usually story points or task count).

### Pros of Burndown Charts:
- Easy to generate in tools like Jira, Trello, or GitHub Projects
- Familiar to Agile/Scrum teams
- Helps forecast if work will be done on time

### Cons of Burndown Charts:
- Doesn't reveal uncertainty or discovery work
- Can give a false sense of progress if new work is added
- Focuses on output, not outcomes

## What Is a Hill Chart?
A hill chart is a visual metaphor used in Shape Up to track work as it transitions from unknowns to knowns. Picture a hill: on the way up, you're figuring things out. At the top, you have clarity. On the way down, you're executing.

### The Hill Metaphor:
- **Uphill**: Problem-solving, discovery, clarifying scope
- **Top**: Full understanding, ready to execute
- **Downhill**: Executing known work, making predictable progress

Unlike burndowns, hill charts don’t care how many tasks are left. They care about what’s uncertain, blocked, or risky—and that’s often what matters most.

## Hill Charts vs Burndown Charts: Side-by-Side
| Aspect | Burndown Chart | Hill Chart |
|--------|----------------|------------|
| Focus | Remaining work over time | Progress from unknown to known |
| Tracks | Output (tasks completed) | Problem-solving state |
| Shows unknowns? | No | Yes |
| Useful for deadlines? | Yes | Indirectly |
| Helps unblock teams? | Not really | Yes |

## Real-World Example
Imagine you're building a new feature with unknown edge cases. On day 5 of a 10-day sprint:

- **Burndown**: You’ve completed 30% of tasks, but most of the critical logic is still murky.
- **Hill Chart**: You’re only 25% up the hill because you’re still exploring. The visual makes it obvious that the team hasn’t cracked the hard parts yet.

## Why Hill Charts Work Better for Engineering Teams
Engineering teams often face ambiguity. Burndown charts assume tasks are fixed and known. But modern product development involves:

- Mid-cycle discoveries
- Shifting priorities
- Unclear specs

Hill charts expose that reality. They’re flexible, visual, and more honest about project health. This makes them ideal for engineering-led teams, R&D environments, and any team practicing Shape Up.

## Can You Use Hill Charts Without Basecamp?
Yes. Originally built into Basecamp, hill charts are now available in standalone tools like **Hillia**. Hillia lets any team use hill charts without committing to a specific platform. Whether you track work in Jira, Notion, or GitHub, you can plug in Hillia to get real-time progress visibility.

### Benefits of Using Hillia:
- Use hill charts outside Basecamp
- Visualize unknowns and unblock work faster
- Integrates with Slack, Jira, and other tools
- Lightweight, focused on Shape Up teams

## Conclusion: Track What Matters Most
Burndown charts measure how much is done. Hill charts measure how close you are to done. For teams solving complex problems, that difference is everything.

If your current project tracking isn’t surfacing real risks or unknowns, it’s time to try a smarter approach. Hill charts give you honest, high-signal insight into what’s blocking progress—and tools like Hillia make them easy to adopt.

**Start tracking what really matters. Try Hillia and get your team over the hill.**


Hill Charts, an alternative to Burndown Charts


If you've been in software development for any time, you've sat through your share of standups, planning meetings, and retrospectives. Scrum has dominated for years, but there's growing frustration among engineers. Many are turning to Shape Up instead. Here's why.

## Sprint vs Cycle: Two Different Rhythms

Scrum works in short sprints—typically two weeks. You plan, build, review, repeat. It sounds efficient, but here's what actually happens:

- You spend 1-2 days planning each sprint
- Just as you get into flow, it's time for another review
- Teams rush to close tickets as the sprint ends
- Deep technical problems get split across sprints

Shape Up uses six-week cycles instead. Here's the difference:

- You get a full six weeks to solve problems end-to-end
- No daily standups interrupting your focus
- Two-week cooldown periods for bugs and exploration
- Teams build complete features, not fragmented pieces

The six-week timeframe isn't random—it's just long enough to build something substantial but short enough to keep urgency high.

## Process & Roles: Less Ceremony, More Building

Scrum comes with a lot of overhead:

- Product Owner managing the backlog
- Scrum Master facilitating meetings
- Daily standups
- Sprint planning
- Backlog refinement
- Sprint review
- Retrospective

That's a lot of meetings. One study found that developers in Scrum teams spend up to 15% of their time in ceremonies. That's more than a full day every two weeks just talking about work.

Shape Up strips this down to the essentials:

- Upfront shaping (before the cycle starts)
- Betting table (replacing backlog grooming)
- Teams working autonomously
- Cooldown for reflection and bugs

No daily standups. No sprint reviews. Just enough structure to keep things on track.

## Developer Perspective: Autonomy Matters

Ask engineers what they hate most about Scrum, and many will point to the constant interruptions and micromanagement. Daily standups break focus. Story points create artificial pressure. Tasks are often pre-defined down to the smallest details.

Shape Up gives developers breathing room:

- Teams decide how to implement solutions
- No daily progress reports
- Work shown on hill charts that reflect reality (uphill = figuring things out, downhill = executing)
- Flexible scope within boundaries

One engineer who switched put it this way: "With Scrum, I felt like I was filling out timesheets. With Shape Up, I feel like I'm solving problems."

The hill chart approach acknowledges something Scrum often misses—a lot of software development is figuring out unknowns, not just executing known tasks.

## Tools Support: Lighter and More Focused

Scrum has the advantage of widespread tool support. Jira, Monday, ClickUp—they all have built-in support for sprints, burndown charts, and velocity metrics.

Shape Up was originally built for Basecamp, but you don't need their full platform to use the method. Teams can use:

- Basecamp (if you want the complete package)
- Hillia (for hill charts without switching platforms)
- Simple boards in any tool

The key difference is what these tools emphasize. Scrum tools track velocity, burndown, and completion percentage. Shape Up tools show where teams are in solving problems—are they still figuring things out, or executing a clear plan?

Hill charts are especially helpful for technical teams because they honestly represent uncertainty. When you're implementing something new, you don't know exactly how long it will take. Hill charts make this visible instead of hiding it.

## When to Choose Shape Up

Shape Up works especially well for:

- Small to medium engineering teams
- Product-led companies
- Teams tired of excessive process
- Projects with flexible scope but fixed timelines
- Organizations that trust their developers

Scrum might still make sense if you:

- Need predictable velocity metrics
- Have contractual delivery requirements
- Work with junior teams needing structure
- Have dependencies across many teams

## Try It Out

The good news is you don't have to go all-in at once. Try Shape Up for one feature cycle. See if your team produces better work with fewer interruptions.

Many teams find that hill charts alone—even without adopting all of Shape Up—improve their ability to communicate progress. The concept of "uphill" and "downhill" work gives everyone a shared language about where things really stand.

Hillia makes it easy to add hill charts to your workflow without changing everything else. It's a simple way to start bringing Shape Up benefits to your engineering team.

## Conclusion

Scrum isn't going away, but Shape Up offers a refreshing alternative for teams drowning in process. Six-week cycles give engineers the focus time they need for deep work, while still maintaining the right level of urgency.

The biggest difference isn't in the diagrams or the terminology—it's in how it feels to actually build software. Engineers using Shape Up spend more time in flow and less time explaining what they did yesterday.

And that's something worth trying.


Shape Up vs Scrum: How Six-Week Cycles Outperform Sprints for Engineers


Want to track progress with hill charts? You've got options: Basecamp, DIY solutions, or Hillia. Let's talk about why Hillia might be your best bet.

## The Problem with Other Options

### Basecamp: Great but Overwhelming

Basecamp created hill charts, and they're awesome there. But:

- You have to buy the whole Basecamp system
- Your team needs to move all their work over
- You pay for tons of features you might not use
- The hill charts are tied to Basecamp's workflow

### DIY Approaches: More Trouble Than They're Worth

Some teams try to build their own using:

- Spreadsheets and charts
- Visualization libraries
- Custom tools

These can work but they're a pain to maintain and miss the features that make hill charts really useful.

## Why Hillia Makes Sense

Hillia focuses on one thing: making hill charts work for your team without the hassle.

### 1. Built Just for Hill Charts

- It does one thing really well
- The interface is super intuitive
- All features are designed specifically for project tracking

### 2. Works With Your Current Tools

- No need to switch project management systems
- Connects with your tools through APIs
- You only pay for what you actually need

### 3. Makes Teams Happy

- Everyone can update hill positions
- You can see how things changed over time
- Comments and discussions link directly to work items
- Different views for different team members

### 4. Smarter Visualization

- Track multiple projects or teams
- Group items however makes sense for you
- Get automated reports
- Export data for meetings

## Shape Up Without Basecamp

Most companies don't use Basecamp. If you're already using Jira, Notion, Asana, or another tool, switching everything to Basecamp just for hill charts doesn't make sense.

Hillia is the most complete alternative for teams who want to use Shape Up without Basecamp:

- **Embed it anywhere**: Add hill charts to Notion pages, Confluence docs, or internal dashboards
- **Stay connected**: Get notifications in Slack when items move on the hill
- **Keep your current tools**: No need to change your project tracking system
- **Use with any methodology**: Works with Scrum, Kanban, or your custom workflow

Teams using Jira for tickets or Notion for docs can add hill charts without disrupting their workflow. You get the benefits of Shape Up's visualization without the cost of switching platforms.

## Getting Started

Setting up Hillia is straightforward:

1. Sign up
2. Create your first hill and add your work items
3. Invite your team
4. Update positions as you work
5. Share with stakeholders

You can be up and running in a day.

## Conclusion

Hill charts are available in other tools, but Hillia gives you a focused solution without complexity or major workflow changes.

By picking a tool made specifically for hill charts, your team gets all the benefits without the hassle and expense.


Why Choose Hillia for Your Hill Charts


Shape Up is a product development method created by Ryan Singer at Basecamp. It's an alternative to Scrum or Kanban that helps teams ship meaningful features in six-week cycles without all the meetings.

## Core Principles of Shape Up

### 1. Shaping Work Before Building

Instead of detailed specs or vague ideas, Shape Up finds a middle ground called "shaping." It means:

- Outlining problems and solutions at a high level
- Setting clear boundaries
- Giving enough detail to guide without micromanaging
- Clearly saying what's not included

The idea is to make work ready for teams without boxing them in.

### 2. Six-Week Cycles

Teams work in six-week cycles:

- Long enough to build something real
- Short enough to keep focus
- No overtime or extensions - if it doesn't fit, it doesn't ship

Between cycles, there's a two-week cooldown to fix bugs, explore ideas, and recharge.

### 3. Betting on Pitches

Shape Up doesn't use never-ending backlogs. Instead, it treats projects as "bets":

- Shaped work gets pitched
- Leaders "bet" on which projects get a cycle
- If a pitch isn't selected, it's gone - not stored in a backlog
- This forces you to focus on what really matters

### 4. Small, Autonomous Teams

Teams in Shape Up are:

- Small (usually 1-3 people)
- Mix of designers and developers
- Fully responsible for their project
- Free to decide how to implement

There are no daily standups or sprint meetings - teams figure out how to work together.

## Getting Started with Shape Up

Switching to Shape Up means rethinking how you build products:

1. **Start small**: Try it with one team for one cycle
2. **Find your shapers**: Look for people who can define problems and set boundaries
3. **Reset expectations**: Help everyone understand the betting approach
4. **Create feedback loops**: Build ways for teams to share progress without micromanagement

## The Upsides

- **Focus**: Teams can concentrate without interruptions
- **Realistic scope**: Built-in limits force practical decisions
- **Less meeting time**: Fewer status updates and planning sessions
- **Better alignment**: Everyone understands priorities

## The Challenges

Shape Up isn't for everyone:

- It works best with experienced teams
- It can be tough for companies with fixed deadlines
- Not having a backlog feels weird at first

## Conclusion

Shape Up is a fresh take on product development that embraces constraints, autonomy, and focused work. It's a big change, but many teams find it leads to better outcomes and healthier work patterns.

Hillia lets you use hill charts - a key part of Shape Up - without going all-in on Basecamp, giving you flexibility in how you implement these ideas.


Shape Up Methodology: A Comprehensive Guide


Tracking progress is hard. Traditional project management tools just don't capture what's really happening - especially the difference between figuring stuff out and actually executing the plan.

## What is a Hill Chart?

Hill charts, created by Ryan Singer at Basecamp, show project progress as a journey over a hill. The uphill side is where you're figuring things out. The downhill side is where you're executing what you've figured out.

![Hill Chart Explained](/blog/hill-chart-explained.jpg)

Here's what the hill really means:

1. **Uphill (Figuring It Out)**: You're tackling unknowns, making decisions, and seeing if things are possible. Moving up means you're getting clarity.

2. **The Top**: You've figured out your approach and know what to do next.

3. **Downhill (Doing the Work)**: You've got a clear plan and now you're executing. Progress here is more predictable.

## Why Hill Charts Work Better

Most progress trackers just show "percent complete" - which is often a guess. Hill charts are different:

- **They show uncertainty**: Your team can point to where they're stuck or confused.
- **They're honest**: No more pretending we know exactly how complete something is.
- **They lead to better conversations**: Managers can quickly see which teams need help with the uphill battle.

## Using Hill Charts With Your Team

Getting started is easy:

1. Break your project into manageable chunks
2. Put each chunk on the hill based on where it stands
3. Update regularly and talk about the items that aren't moving
4. Use what you see to make smarter decisions about timelines

They work great with Shape Up but fit with pretty much any development approach.

## Conclusion

Hill charts match how work actually happens - moving from "we're figuring it out" to "we know what we're doing." By being honest about the exploration phase, your team communicates better and sets clearer expectations.

Hillia lets you use hill charts without needing all of Basecamp, giving your team a simple way to show and talk about progress.


hillia.

Hillia Blog

Hill Charts, an alternative to Burndown Charts

Shape Up vs Scrum: How Six-Week Cycles Outperform Sprints for Engineers

Why Choose Hillia for Your Hill Charts

Shape Up Methodology: A Comprehensive Guide

Understanding Hill Charts: A Visual Approach to Project Progress