Shortcut Blog

What's the Best Free Project Management Tool for Engineering Teams in 2026?

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Looking for the best free project management tool for engineering teams? See what Shortcut's free plan includes, from GitHub integration to issue tracking, sprint planning and roadmaps.

How to Handle Constantly Changing Priorities at Work

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Priorities constantly shifting? Our blog post shares five practical tips to help you manage constant change in product development.

How To Stay The Course & Develop Great Products

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Learn how to break through creative ruts, organize your workflow, and build habits that support long-term productivity and product development.

How High-Performing Teams Are Planning for 2026

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

High-performing teams plan for 2026 by building adaptable systems, aligning outcomes, and keeping progress visible with Shortcut.

An Easy Way for Teams to Submit Product Requests

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Learn how to turn Slack messages into structured product requests using a simple reaction-based workflow that creates Stories directly in Shortcut.

Designing a Calmer, Clearer, Faster Shortcut

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Today, we're introducing the new Shortcut look — a calmer, clearer, faster, and more focused experience built to help teams stay focused on what matters.

7 Best Jira Alternatives for Engineering Teams in 2026

Sun, 09 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Discover the best Jira alternatives for engineering teams. Compare Shortcut, Asana, Notion and more to find tools built for speed and simplicity.

What Makes a Good Objective: A Guide for Product and Engineering Managers

Sun, 09 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Learn what makes a good objective for product and engineering teams. A practical guide to writing effective OKRs, avoiding common mistakes, and driving better execution.

Best Project Management Alternative to Spreadsheets

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Spreadsheets work for small teams, but as you grow, they break down. Learn why teams switch to Shortcut for project management and how to make the transition.

Best Jira Alternatives for Engineering Teams (2026 Guide)

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Looking for Jira alternatives? Compare the top tools for engineering and product teams in 2026. See why teams choose Shortcut.

Best Project Management Tools for Engineering Teams in 2026

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Compare Shortcut, Jira, Linear, and more to find the right project management tool for your developer workflow in 2026.

Best GitHub Issues Alternatives: Top Tools for Engineering and Product Teams

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Looking for a GitHub Issues alternative? See why engineering teams choose Shortcut for structured planning, progress tracking, and GitHub integration.

Best Linear Alternatives for Engineering Teams in 2026

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Looking for a Linear alternative? See why engineering teams choose Shortcut for sprint planning, roadmaps, and project management.

Trello Alternatives for Engineering Teams (2026 Edition)

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Looking for a Trello alternative built for engineers? Compare the best tools for agile product teams.

From Milestones to Objectives: How Teams Move from Shipping Work to Achieving Outcomes

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Learn how to shift to outcome-driven development by moving from milestones to objectives and key results for better product outcomes.

How to Align Product Roadmaps With Engineering Sprints (2025)

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Stop updating your roadmap by hand. Learn how Shortcut and Korey connect objectives, epics, and stories to keep product and engineering in sync.

Big Ideas Are Now Easier to Build: Sub-tasks in Shortcut

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Sub-tasks in Shortcut enable teams to break larger Stories into actionable steps so progress stays visible and big ideas keep moving.

To Build the Future: Ada Lovelace and the Unseen Worlds of Engineering

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Imagination isn't fantasy. It's how engineers reason about complexity and design systems that don't yet exist. Ada Lovelace saw that in 1841. We see it every day in how teams build with Shortcut.

Introducing Korey: The AI Agent For Product Engineering Workflows

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Meet Korey, the AI product manager that turns Slack messages into stories, fills in the details, and writes release notes. Built for engineering teams that want to ship faster.

How Marketing Teams Can Use Shortcut to Work Alongside Product Development

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Learn how marketing teams can use Shortcut alongside product and engineering to streamline launches, align campaigns, and reduce cross-functional friction.

Shortcut MCP Server: Connect AI Tools to Your Data

Tue, 15 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Connect Shortcut to Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, and Zed using the Shortcut MCP Server. Give your AI agents secure access to real-time Stories, Epics, and Comments.

A Fairly Thorough Guide to Understanding Velocity vs. Capacity

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Velocity vs. capacity — Two terms that engineering managers need to understand for resource planning. Know the difference to better enable your engineering team to plan development priorities and avoid bottlenecks and inefficiencies.

Best Project Management Tools for Startup Teams in 2025: The Real Guide

Fri, 20 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Guide to project management tools that work for startups. Shortcut wins for dev teams, ClickUp for mixed teams, Trello when you need to start shipping.

Collaborate with your AI Teammates in Shortcut

Tue, 20 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Collaborate with AI agents like Korey inside Shortcut to clean up your backlog, create development-ready Stories, and ship faster.

Alternatives to Height.app

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Looking for a Height.app alternative for project management? With Height shutting down in September 2025, now's the time to explore your options.

Shortcut Has A New Look

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Shortcut is all about making work easier—so our brand should feel just as effortless.

See Story Relationships At A Glance

Fri, 14 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT

We're excited to share a powerful new feature that came out of our last Hackathon—Story Relationship Visualization. Now, you can see Story relationships at a glance with an auto-generated Mermaid chart.

Pivotal Tracker Alternatives for Project Management

Tue, 25 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMT

With Pivotal Tracker reaching end of life in April 2025, teams need a new home for their project management. Shortcut is a fast, powerful alternative built for product and engineering teams.

Backlog Refinement: Benefits, Steps, and Best Practices

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Regular backlog refinement ensures Agile teams maintain a prioritized and organized product backlog that adapts to evolving project needs and stakeholder expectations.

What Is Project Management?

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Agile project management delivers products faster by using short, iterative cycles that adapt to changing circumstances for continuous improvement.

What Is Project Management?

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Agile project management delivers products faster by using short, iterative cycles that adapt to changing circumstances for continuous improvement.

What Is Project Management?

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Agile project management delivers products faster by using short, iterative cycles that adapt to changing circumstances for continuous improvement.

Anniversary Release Event Recap

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Hear about what we've shipped recently, what's upcoming and our vision for the future.

Keep Work Moving with Work In Progress Limits

Fri, 01 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Work in Progress (WIP) Limits let teams cap the number of active Stories in a workflow state, keeping work manageable and teams focused on finishing what they start.

Sharing Progress with Roadmaps

Fri, 23 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Shortcut's Roadmap helps teams communicate asynchronously about focus and progress. Learn how to set up your roadmap, add health status, and share with stakeholders.

Keep Your Conversations Seamlessly Connected with Slack Thread Sync

Tue, 18 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Keep Slack conversations in sync with Shortcut stories. Slack Thread Sync links threaded discussions to Stories, ensuring team conversations and documentation are unified.

Importing From Pivotal Tracker to Shortcut

Wed, 22 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT

We've built an open source importer for teams moving to Shortcut from Pivotal Tracker.

Jira vs. Pivotal Tracker: Which One is Right for Your Team?

Wed, 15 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Looking to compare Jira vs. Pivotal Tracker for your project management needs? Let's review key features, integrations, and ease of use while also looking at Shortcut as a good alternative for agile software development teams.

Improvements to Backlog Management in Shortcut

Thu, 02 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT

The Backlog in Shortcut gives teams a dedicated space to plan and prioritize feedback, upcoming project requirements, and ideas. Recent improvements make it even easier to move work from early ideation through to ready for Iterations or Epics.

6 Shortcuts to Work Faster in Shortcut

Wed, 01 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Six built-in Shortcut features—Search, Power Bar, Activity Feed, Spaces, Shortcut.new, and VCS integrations—that help you work faster and keep your hands on the keyboard.

A New Markdown Experience in Shortcut

Tue, 23 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Shortcut's enhanced Story Dialog markdown experience adds smarter keyboard shortcuts, seamless pasting, a refreshed editor toolbar, and cleaner link and table formatting.

How to Prioritize Work When There's so Much to Do

Fri, 15 Mar 2024 00:00:00 GMT

This post explores tips on how to prioritize work using frameworks like RICE, being clear about company priorities, and the importance of documentation when product managers feel overwhelmed with work.

A NEW Stories Page Rebuilt from the Ground Up

Mon, 11 Mar 2024 00:00:00 GMT

The Stories page on Shortcut is one of the most used pages. We rebuilt it from the ground up to be 10X faster with a new look, new features, and improved filters.

Is a Code Review Checklist Necessary?

Thu, 22 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT

You don't need a formal code review checklist, but you should have a standardized one. Here's who should review code, when, and the three critical elements of a good checklist.

How Startups Use Shortcut to Drive Results

Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Savio's co-founder Kareem Mayan shares how his startup uses Shortcut as the single source of truth for product development, from VCS integrations to tracking work against company objectives.

The Software Developer's Guide to Choosing the Right Kanban Board Software

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Kanban board software helps teams streamline workflows, identify bugs, and manage development sprints. Learn how to choose the right kanban tool for your team.

Align your team's work with your company's goals with our latest feature: Objectives

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Objectives in Shortcut help connect strategy with execution by allowing teams to define Objectives and Key Results, connect them to Epics, and track ongoing progress.

Burndown Chart: Are we on track?

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT

A burndown chart gives fast insight into whether your iteration is on track. Learn how to read Shortcut's burndown chart and the team conversations it can prompt.

We're Transforming Reports

Tue, 19 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMT

At Shortcut we care a lot about the health of our teams. And recently, we've been prioritizing a more metrics-driven understanding of our team health and performance. Understanding these metrics has been critical to promoting healthy team workflows and meeting our commitments -- and this currently requires a lot of manual effort and overhead.

A New Logo to Mark a New Shortcut

Wed, 06 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Feast your eyes on our revamped logo—sleek, contemporary, and irresistibly fresh. So crisp it's almost hazardous! We've carried over the elements we cherished from the old design and elevated them to something truly spectacular.

Introducing Shortcut's 'Curated Roadmap': A Revolutionary Approach to Roadmap Visualization

Tue, 29 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Shortcut's Curated Roadmap enhances project management with personalized representations, prioritization, and adaptability. It features 'health status' for real-time updates, improving transparency and collaboration. Organized around teams, it streamlines alignment and efficiency, making it ideal for modern, agile teams.

Automations for Epics and Iterations

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Automate away busy work and streamline processes with Shortcut Automations! Shortcut Automations help teams automate repetitive tasks when it comes to managing Iteraions and Epics so you can spend more time on high-value work like strategy and creative thinking. Read on to see how Automations work in Shortcut!

Get visibility into blockers and work harmoniously as a team with Overlapping PRs

Thu, 13 Jul 2023 00:00:00 GMT

The workflow between GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Shortcut is now stronger than ever. Set up customizable GitHelpers, take advantage of open work autodetection, utilize Draft PR support, and even more!

Git more done with our updated VCS Integrations

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 00:00:00 GMT

The workflow between GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Shortcut helps developers streamline their process and stay in their terminals. Set up customizable GitHelpers, take advantage of open work autodetection, utilize Draft PR support, and more!

Introducing HelpHub: A smart and streamlined help experience

Tue, 27 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Leverage Shortcut and Notion for stronger collaboration, better alignment, and efficient workflows for all software teams

Thu, 01 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Embed your Miro boards in Shortcut stories, docs, epics, and more!

Tue, 23 May 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Using the Miro and Shortcut integration helps your team sreamline workflows and see the full picture of every project, all in one place.

A new Team-Focused Navigation for better focus, reduced noise, and more joy in Shortcut

Mon, 08 May 2023 00:00:00 GMT

The Team Focus Navigation now allows users to view work that is relevant to a particular Team (e.g. Stories, Epics, Iterations, and Backlog).

Take a walk on the dark side with Shortcut Dark Mode

Mon, 10 Apr 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Now there's a darker alternative to the normal mode in Shortcut for those days when you want to work in the \"Batcave\". With Dark Mode in Shortcut you can alleviate some of the strain that comes from staring at a computer or digital device for most of the day.

How Shortcut Uses Holistic Feature Planning to Reduce Unwanted Surprises

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Christine Sanderson-Movius, Senior Software Engineer on the Plan team at Shortcut, breaks down how to use Holistic Feature Planning.

How to Transition Away from Jira and Have a Good Life Again

Tue, 14 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Has Jira become the bane of your existence?

6 Rules (You are Free to Ignore) for Managing Your Backlog

Wed, 08 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMT

It's time to manage that backlog.

Unlock better prioritization and planning in Shortcut with the Backlog

Mon, 27 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT

The Shortcut Backlog provides a view of work that can be prioritized for the development team based on their roadmap and goals.

Stats vs. Surveillance: Is Jira Breaking Your Team's Psychological Safety?

Mon, 27 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Without trust, your team can’t buy into the company’s mission, can’t really commit, and therefore can’t be held accountable for the results you hired them to make in the first place.

Unlock better prioritization and planning in Shortcut with the Backlog

Mon, 27 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT

The Shortcut Backlog provides a view of work that can be prioritized for the development team based on their roadmap and goals.

Ultimate Setup Series: Best Practices for Backlog Management

Wed, 22 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Now that we have a new backlog feature, you should use our new backlog feature.

Why It's Important to Maintain Your Product Backlog, Especially Now That We Have a Backlog Feature

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Stay focused on the most important tasks, while also not forgetting about all that other stuff.

5 Ways Jira Slows Everyone Down

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Why are you still using Jira?

Ultimate Setup Series: Best Practices for Managing Bugs

Sun, 05 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Squash bugs.

The Best Issue Tracking Tools in 2023 (Hint: It’s Not Jira.)

Mon, 30 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Is your New Year’s Resolution is to break up with Jira?

Why does Agile remain such a popular methodology for project managing software development?

Mon, 28 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMT

No matter who you ask, no one is indifferent to Agile, and everyone has an opinion about how it should be done (and why the way you do it is wrong). How'd it get so popular?

How Shortcut Uses LaunchDarkly

Sat, 19 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMT

In modern agile software development, feature management is a best practice to reduce risk and speed up code delivery. At Shortcut, our engineers use LaunchDarkly. This post explores why and how we use it.

Ultimate Setup Series: Best Practices for Monitoring Progress

Wed, 16 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMT

In the seventh post in our Ultimate Setup series, we discuss best practices for monitoring progress in Shortcut.

2 Weeks in the Life of a Shortcut Engineer

Mon, 14 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Sometimes Stories take longer to complete than you initially think.

The 2022 Shortcut Hackathon Round Up

Thu, 10 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMT

We had a hackathon again!

9 Signs it's Time to Break Up with Jira

Fri, 04 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMT

It's not you. It's Jira.

Trick or Treat... or Both? 7 Tricks in Shortcut That are Actually Treats

Thu, 27 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Read on for 7 treat-worthy tricks to work faster and accomplish more with Shortcut.

Ultimate Setup Series: Best Practices for the Shortcut Hierarchy

Mon, 24 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMT

This is the seventh post in Shortcut's Ultimate Setup Series. Today, we cover best practices for the Shortcut hierarchy.

A Guide to Story Pointing

Wed, 19 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMT

In agile project management for software development, a story point is a useful metric to determine the difficulty level required to complete a story - in other words, how much effort is required.

Advanced Custom Fields are here for more control..

Wed, 19 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Advanced Custom Fields help your team categorize work and provide the structure to support your unique process. With advanced Custom Fields your organization can organize and represent your work and processes in Shortcut the way you like to work in real life.

Product Management: An In-Depth Guide

Wed, 12 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Ultimate Setup Series: Best Practices for Iterations

Fri, 07 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMT

This is the sixth post in Shortcut's Ultimate Setup Series. Today, we cover best practices for Iterations.

How to Be Productive at Home

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMT

With no office, no boss looking over your shoulder, and no co-workers around to help you feel accountable, work can take over your entire life while also becoming more difficult to accomplish. How can you avoid this?

What is Lead Time and Why Should Agile Teams Care?

Sat, 24 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Lead Time measures the time between when a Story was created and when it was completed.

How I Learned Clojure and Datomic at Shortcut

Wed, 21 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMT

What it was like to learn Clojure and Datomic at Shortcut - along with recommendations for others who want to learn Clojure and Datomic!

How to Bring Engineers on Board with the Product Vision

Thu, 15 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMT

The best way to build bad software products? Foster a culture of resentment and mistrust.

How Shortcut supports Agile development: Scrum, Kanban, and everything in between

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Using Agile practices in Shortcut can help your organization ship faster and produce higher quality work by keeping everybody on the team on the same page. In this post, we'll cover Agile concepts in Shortcut and how to use Shortcut to support your team if you follow Scrum, Kanban, or a hybrid of both methodologies.

12 Secret Tips to Help You Succeed at Work

Thu, 08 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMT

12 secret or not-so secret tips to help you work well and stay sane.

When to Cut Scope to Get a Product Out the Door

Mon, 29 Aug 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Cut through the chaos with Shortcut, not scissors.

A Fairly Thorough Guide to Understanding Velocity vs. Capacity

Wed, 24 Aug 2022 00:00:00 GMT

This is the first post in "News & Updates” our new series on managing

Product Development the Shortcut Way

Tue, 23 Aug 2022 00:00:00 GMT

It's all about a unified experience.

4 Keys to a Good (Even Great) User Interface

Fri, 19 Aug 2022 00:00:00 GMT

A good user interface is very important, we’re often told. But what is a good user interface, and what makes a good user interface a great user interface?

Why Agile Product Management Works

Tue, 09 Aug 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Processes that work make people happy, as opposed to processes that don’t work.

Use Product Analytics to Improve User Experience

Thu, 28 Jul 2022 00:00:00 GMT

As long as you have a product to sell, you have the job of determining how your users are interacting with that product - so you can then improve upon that product and give your users better and better experiences. Rinse and repeat. And on and on we go until the end of time. Or at least for as long as you have a product to sell.

Scrum vs Kanban: a Comparison Guide

Thu, 14 Jul 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Shortcut is flexible, which means there’s no need to choose between Scrum and Kanban - you can do both.

Docs are here to help you plan, manage, and document your work, in one unified experience in Shortcut

Tue, 12 Jul 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Plan, manage, and document work for seamless, frustration-free software development.

An Introduction to Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC)

Fri, 01 Jul 2022 00:00:00 GMT

STLC is a testing strategy involving a verification and validation process that can help you efficiently meet software quality goals and standards.

10 Best Jira Alternatives in 2023

Fri, 24 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Because after all, your issue tracker shouldn't be a four letter word.

Common Room values freedom and flexibility in their issue tracking tool

Thu, 09 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Common Room values Shortcut because it's fast and flexible, and teams have freedom in terms of how they use it.

10 Ways to Use Shortcut Docs

Wed, 01 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Shortcut automatically syncs your Docs to existing Stories, Epics, Labels, and Iterations, providing a single source of truth.

How to help software developers and PMs like each other

Wed, 18 May 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Both developers and product managers want the same thing: to build better products. But having the same goal doesn't guarantee a smooth collaboration. In fact, it takes a lot of time and efforts for the two parties to align and be on the same page.

The Designer's Toolkit: What Tools Do Shortcut Designers Use?

Thu, 12 May 2022 00:00:00 GMT

We’ve covered the tools Shortcut's product managers and software engineers use; now, what about the tools our product and brand designers use?

The Product Manager’s Toolkit: What Tools Do Shortcut PMs Use?

Fri, 06 May 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Like a good stack of pancakes, a good tech stack can help nourish software development and keep PMs going all day long.

Prioritize your work and manage your backlog with Priority and Severity Fields

Wed, 04 May 2022 00:00:00 GMT

The Priority Field should be used to filter and sort Stories in order of priority. The Severity Field should be used to filter and sort Stories in order of Severity.

Continuous Empirical Planning

Thu, 28 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMT

One of the most important things an agile project management system can do is answer one question: when will this work complete?

The Software Engineer’s Toolkit: What Tools Do Shortcut Engineers Use?

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMT

The software development tools our own software engineers at Shortcut use

Kanban, Scrum, Scrumban: What's the difference?

Wed, 13 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Shortcut is flexible, which means there’s no need to choose between kanban and scrum. You can instead feel free to mix and match between both methods.

April fools is no laughing matter. Wait, or is it?

Thu, 31 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Celebrate Corporations Doing Comedy Day with a new one-day-only feature in Shortcut

Structure and Flexibility: Why Vanta Uses Shortcut

Tue, 29 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMT

For Vanta, Shortcut is the perfect balance between structure and usability.

How we improved conversion by changing one word

Tue, 22 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMT

No test is too small when you have an experimentation mindset.

Asynchronous Collaboration the Ben Franklin Way

Tue, 15 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Shortcut, as a remote-first company, was designed for asynchronous working.

Product Management: An In-Depth Guide

Mon, 14 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Ultimate Setup Series: Best Practices for Workspaces

Wed, 02 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Best practices for Workspaces in Shortcut

Shortcut Write will return as Shortcut Docs

Thu, 24 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMT

The knowledge base tool you'll enjoy using. Shortcut Docs makes it easier for your software team to document, collaborate, and ideate together. Write will seamlessly interact with Shortcut's product management platform - saving you time.

Custom Fields are here for better categorization, structure, and organization of work

Tue, 22 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Fields are here to help with the categorization of work and to help organizations transition away from Projects.

The Shapes of Shortcut

Sat, 19 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMT

We bring the flow to your software team’s workflow. We also bring illustrations to our brand identity. Here is the story of our illustrative style.

How to Build Trust Through Reporting

Wed, 16 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMT

It’s Valentine’s Day, which means we’re going to talk about relationships. And trust. Even if it wasn’t Valentine’s Day, and it was more like the day after Valentine’s Day, which it is, we’d still probably want to talk about building good relationships through trust in the workplace, whatever ‘workplace’ means to you these days - on a boat, in your kitchen, under a tent? Wherever you are, healthy, high-performing software teams should consistently work towards building trust: within squads, across squads, between squads, and with their managers and stakeholders. One way to do this is through reporting and metrics

Keep Interfaces Small

Tue, 08 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Keep interfaces small. Other things equal, a larger interface is always worse than a smaller interface. What do I mean when I say interface? An interface is the exposed functionality of a module.

Convince Your Team to Use Shortcut in 5 Easy Steps

Thu, 03 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMT

When you discover a project management tool that’s easy to use and makes getting work done enjoyable, you want to tell your team about it, and you want everyone to start using it. Here's how to make this happen.

Thirty Madison Scales with Shortcut During Explosive Growth

Thu, 03 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMT

At the height of Thirty Madison's explosive growth in 2020, they found themselves in need of a new project management tool in order to scale effectively. Here's why they chose Shortcut.

Ultimate Setup Series: Best Practices for Teams

Thu, 20 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

There is no I in Team, but there is a Me.

Task Management, Issue Tracking, Project Management, and Product Management: What's the Difference?

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Management, tracking, projects, tasks, issues… If you have a job - you know, that thing you do for money? Maybe probably from your couch some of the time, or maybe all of the time? - you might be tired of hearing these words, because they get thrown around a lot in workplaces and fake workplaces, like your living room. This post breaks down the differences between task management, issue tracking, project management, and product management tools.

Use Threaded Comments in Stories for more focused conversations

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Threaded Comments on Shortcut Stories make it easy to quickly scan, understand, and jump into the relevant parts of a conversation without the headache of reading through every comment.

The Best Issue Tracking Systems for 2022

Thu, 06 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

In software development, issue tracking systems provide the necessary support to ensure that all issues are addressed in a timely manner, which is good, as opposed to an untimely manner, which is bad. In this article, we’ll go over what you need to know about tracking issues effectively, which is good, as opposed to tracking issues ineffectively, which is bad.

12 Days of Partners, Integrations, and Other Good Stuff

Wed, 05 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Our twelfth featured post is dedicated to all of our partnerships and integrations. Because no man is an island.

12 Days of Partners, Integrations, and Other Good Stuff: React-Spring

Thu, 30 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Our tenth feature in this continuing series: React-Spring. The platform that breathes life into your animations with simple spring animation primitives, so that your animations have a natural look and feel.

12 Days of Partners, Integrations, and Other Good Stuff: Google Sheets

Wed, 22 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Our ninth featured integration is: Google Sheets. Google is a small, relatively unknown company whose spreadsheet program integrates with Shortcut.

12 Days of Partners, Integrations, and Other Good Stuff: Rollbar

Mon, 20 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Our eighth featured Integration is Rollbar, which helps you roll right over any bugs you encounter.

12 Days of Partners, Integrations, and Other Good Stuff: LinearB

Sat, 18 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

On the Fifth Day of Partnerships, Integrations, and Other Good Things, Shortcut brings to you: LinearB

12 Days of Partners, Integrations, and Other Good Stuff: GitLab

Thu, 16 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Our sixth featured integration is GitLab, the platform that empowers us to work smarter, not harder, by merging projects seamlessly.

2021 Year in Review

Thu, 16 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

As we celebrate the end of another year we want to start by thanking our customers and partners for their continued support of Shortcut. Here is our 2021 year in review at Shortcut

12 Days of Partners, Integrations, and Other Good Stuff: FireHydrant

Wed, 15 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

On the Fifth Day of Partnerships, Integrations, and Other Good Things, Shortcut brings to you: FireHydrant

Add (more) Joy to Shortcut!

Wed, 15 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

The goal of adding JOY to Shortcut has always been a mission of ours since the company was founded. During our last Hackathon, our team shipped a fun way to add (more) joy in Shortcut so you and your team can celebrate your wins and accomplishments in Shortcut. Here’s what’s new:

12 Days of Partners, Integrations, and Other Good Stuff: Productboard

Tue, 14 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Our fourth featured integration is for anyone who builds software products, which may very well include you, if you’re reading this: Productboard.

12 Days of Partners, Integrations, and Other Good Stuff: Slack

Sat, 11 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

On the Third Day of Partnerships, Integrations, and Other Good Things, Shortcut brings to you: Slack

12 Days of Partners, Integrations, and Other Good Stuff: GitHub

Fri, 10 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

On this Second Day of Partners, Integrations, and Other Good Stuff, Shortcut brings to you: our robust integration with GitHub.

12 Days of Partners, Integrations, and Other Good Stuff: Sentry

Thu, 09 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

On this First Day of Partners, Integrations, and Other Good Stuff, Shortcut brings to you: Sentry

How to Thank a Coworker

Sat, 04 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Studies show that 9 out of 10 people wish they heard "thank you" in their daily interactions. Of course they do. In this post, Shortcut’s very own Mike Long, Director of Design, Christine Sanderson-Movius, Software Engineer, and Dana Calderone, Growth Product Manager participated in a roundtable discussion on how to best make their coworkers feel valued, appreciated, and thanked.

What is software project management? 4 things to know

Wed, 24 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Software project management is a complex undertaking. But when teams have access to the right tools, software teams can achieve their goals and deliver products within budget and on time. This makes things less complex.

Ultimate Setup Series: Get Started with the Basics

Fri, 19 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Welcome to Shortcut! And welcome to the Ultimate Setup Series. Use this series for guidance in putting the flow in your workflow, the can and in your kanban, and the shortcut in your Shortcut. In this first post, we’ll go over the basic building blocks of Shortcut to help you get started: Epics, Milestones, Iterations, Roadmaps, Teams, and more.

Software engineering teams are more productive when they work at a comfortable pace

Tue, 16 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Work for a company who values your time.

8 Ways to Improve Cross-Team Collaboration

Fri, 12 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMT

If you’re in agile software development, you probably have multiple teams, or you’re growing into an organization that has multiple teams. Multiple teams need cross-functional collaboration. Find out how to better facilitate cross-functional collaboration for your multiple teams.

Transparency: messy but worth it

Wed, 10 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Shortcut co-founder and Chief Design Officer Andrew Childs writes from experience about why transparency is a good thing, why it’s complicated, how it can test organizations, and why ultimately transparency is completely worth it, despite its messiness.

A Shortcut to Importing Your Data Into Shortcut

Fri, 05 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMT

If you like using Shortcut, but you’re wondering what to do with your old or current workspaces, wonder no further. It’s never been easier to import the work your team has completed elsewhere into Shortcut. Just follow 3 easy steps!

Shortcut vs. Trello: Choose the best software project management tool

Wed, 03 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Shortcut is a great alternative to Trello because we provide more structure, options, and visibility for your growing software team. Yes, yes, of course we’re biased. On the other hand, who better than the people who work at Shortcut and use Shortcut every single day to attest to this fact?

Trello vs. Shortcut: Choose the best software project management tool

Wed, 03 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Looking to compare Shortcut vs. Trello? Compare Trello and Shortcut and see which project management software works best for software development teams including kanban boards tasks and workflows.

6 Tricks That Are Actually Treats in Shortcut

Fri, 29 Oct 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Not all Halloween tricks are scary. In fact, some tricks are actually treats by themselves, because they make working so much easier! This week, we reached out to our users to find out which Shortcut tricks they find the most helpful. Here are 6 of them!

Shortcut vs Jira: Choose the Most Powerful Project Management Tool

Wed, 27 Oct 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Shortcut is the best alternative to Jira. Why? Because it’s fast, lightweight, easy to use, and focused on cross-team collaboration. Best of all, it doesn’t make you angry to use it.

Not Bad at All: Part II

Sat, 23 Oct 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Description: Shortcut’s co-founder and Chief Design Officer, Andrew Childs, writes about the origin of Shortcut, the problem with opinionated project management tools, the psychological safety in making mistakes, and Mr. Rogers. This is Part II of II. Read Part I here.

Not Bad at All: Part I

Wed, 20 Oct 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Shortcut’s co-founder and Chief Design Officer, Andrew Childs, writes about the origin of Shortcut, the problem with opinionated project management tools, the psychological safety in making mistakes, and Mr. Rogers. This is Part I of II.

The 2021 Shortcut Hackathon Roundup

Tue, 12 Oct 2021 00:00:00 GMT

We had a hackathon!

Scaling Your Organization and Operations Together

Fri, 01 Oct 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Team structure, teams using Teams, work hierarchy, and processes: here's how to think about scaling your organization and operations together.

5 Ways to Enable Cross-Team Collaboration in Agile Software Development

Thu, 23 Sep 2021 00:00:00 GMT

The majority of today’s modern software development teams are distributed, working on complex projects that require cross-team collaboration to get things done. As a manager, how do you facilitate this? To start, you set up your cross-functional teams and you keep them functional. Here are 5 ways to accomplish this.

A guide for transitioning to the new Shortcut Data Model

Wed, 22 Sep 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Our latest release enables you to get more value out of Teams without removing your ability to categorize with Projects. Read this blog post for guidance on how to easily transition over to this new Data Model.

Streamline your setup with our updated Data Model

Tue, 21 Sep 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Our newest release fulfills the initial promise of our Teams feature by elevating it to the central organizing force within Shortcut.

Taking the Shortcut: Shafak Ilyas

Sat, 18 Sep 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Shafak is a person who works at Shortcut. In this post, you'll learn all about her.

Performance is key to bringing joy to day to day work

Fri, 17 Sep 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Increased adoption, added usage, and a growing list of features present unique challenges around usability and performance. How are we tackling those challenges to ensure we’re just as easy to use for 500 people as we are for 3?

Previewing our streamlined Data Model

Tue, 24 Aug 2021 00:00:00 GMT

With our next release around the corner, we're excited to share our roadmap for a more streamlined Shortcut Data Model, which includes changes to Teams, Projects, Workflows, and Custom Fields.

Clubhouse's name is now Shortcut

Fri, 30 Jul 2021 00:00:00 GMT

They say there are no shortcuts in life, and they were mostly right about that. Until now. Goodbye Clubhouse. Hello Shortcut.

How to choose the best software development project management tool

Thu, 01 Jul 2021 00:00:00 GMT

If you’re building software, this guide will walk you through how to go about choosing the right project management tool for your software development team.

Set your mouse aside with our keyboard powered Power Bar

Wed, 30 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Our all new Power Bar enables keyboard-friendly navigation, search, shortcuts, and actions in Shortcut

Connect product strategy to execution with the new Productboard + Shortcut Integration

Wed, 23 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Reducing friction and barriers to collaborating on building great products is why we're thrilled to announce the Shortcut integration with Productboard.

How to choose the right Shortcut plan for your software team

Mon, 14 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMT

We’ve created plans aligned to meet every organization’s needs and how they like to work, while also helping improve efficiency. Which plan is right for you? Read on to find out.

Our May Release Event Recap

Fri, 04 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Learn all about our new Power Bar, Roadmap enhancements, our upcoming Productboard Integration, future updates for Teams, and other big Shortcut release plans.

How Tidelift uses Shortcut to develop their product from ground zero

Thu, 13 May 2021 00:00:00 GMT

The best thing about Shortcut is the speed. It’s a quick interface and reflects changes fast. That’s super important because if I’m going through a hundred things (which I just did last week) and I have to spend a minute per thing, then I’ll never be able to get through them.

Connect Shortcut to Google Sheets for custom reporting and analysis

Wed, 12 May 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Our Google Sheets integration allows for real-time updates of Shortcut data to be sent to a connected Google Sheet. Any updates that happen in your Shortcut Workspace will be dynamically updated to a connected Google Sheet.

Shaping our new brand direction

Wed, 05 May 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Evolution is important. Any fish that has feet can tell you that. With that in mind, let’s dive into how we're developing our new brand style.

A look into the future (and past) of Shortcut

Thu, 29 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT

See recaps of all the sessions from our March event and learn more about our upcoming May event.

Scaling a company with Shortcut from early stage to exit

Wed, 21 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Learn how Charles Burgess, the former Head of Integrations and very early employee at Perch Security, about his experience using Shortcut as Perch grew from a team of people who could all fit around a single table all the way to a mature organization that was purchased by ConnectWise in the Fall.

Gain insights and plan more effectively with Cycle Time and Lead Time Chart

Wed, 14 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Cycle Time and Lead Time Chart are now available in Shortcut to provide your company with data that can help you plan and allocate resources more effectively. Use this chart to gain insight into how much time and human-power it takes to complete different types of Stories in Shortcut.

Make sound decisions with deeper reporting insights

Tue, 13 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Learn how Matt Sheaffer, a Senior Engineering Manager at Guru, used our Google Sheets Integration to build a Customer Pain Score that helps teams across Guru strike a balance between shipping features and tackling technical debt and bugs.

How to bring technical and non-technical teams together

Fri, 09 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Being a product led company means the Product team must actively collaborate with, and incorporate feedback from, the rest of the org. Here's how Mansi Kothari, Product Lead at Maven Clinic, works to build a shared Product vision across technical and non-technical teams.

Roadmaps get even better with Presentation Mode, Milestones, additional filters, and unique + shareable URLs

Tue, 06 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT

See Milestones alongside Epics to connect your short-term project management efforts to long-term business goals, access more filters to customize views by Quarter, Milestones, Epic States, Labels (and more), share unique URLs so others can see your customized views of the Roadmap, and view a distraction free version of the Roadmap timeline in presentation mode.

Making sure Shortcut is there when you need it

Wed, 24 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Shortcut has recently encountered on a few different occasions a cascading server failure event that resulted in a loss of service for users. Here's what caused it and what we're doing to fix.

Organize Shortcut around your Teams

Wed, 24 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Our new "Teams" feature makes teams a first-class citizen of Shortcut, just like they are within your organization.

You're invited to The Future of Shortcut and Product Collaboration

Wed, 03 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Your company is growing, your team has aggressive goals, and everyone needs to continue working better together. Get best practice tips from other Shortcut users from Scale, Maven, Guru, and Perch Security who'll dive in to how they get things done with (and without) Shortcut.

Tips for remote project planning throughout 2021

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMT

We gathered product and engineering leaders from Sentry, Gatsby, Shortcut, and Vimeo to share their expert advice and experience about how to best tackle remote planning for 2021 and even beyond the pandemic when many of us will likely find ourselves in a hybrid WFH / office world.

Track actionable Sprint metrics with our new Iteration Velocity Chart

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Use our new Iteration Velocity Chart to track actionable metrics, support your team's output, and run smarter Sprints.

Use the Shortcut API to find and update external links, and more!

Wed, 03 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMT

The latest update to the Shortcut API V3 enables users to update a Story's external links and to also find all Stories associated with a given external link.

Use the Shortcut API to find and update external links, and more!

Wed, 03 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMT

The latest update to the Shortcut API V3 enables users to update a Story's external links and to also find all Stories associated with a given external link.

Looking back on our 2020 Diversity and Inclusion efforts

Fri, 22 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Shortcut is a startup with fewer than 100 employees. There is no better time to set a good agenda and take action on it than while we’re still small enough for every employee to know every other employee.

Our 2020 product launch year in review

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT

A guide to all the features we released over the course of everyone's favorite year.

Twelve Days of Integrations: The Shortcut API

Thu, 24 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT

On our Twelfth Day of Integrations Shortcut gives to you: A REST API in a Shortcut. Why stop stop at using integrations that other organizations have built, when you can also build your own?

Twelve Days of Integrations: Rollbar

Tue, 22 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT

On the Tenth Day of Integrations Shortcut gives to you: ten bugs a'making your customers really upset on twitter and a Rollbar to help fix them.

Twelve Days of Integrations: Zapier

Sat, 19 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Our integration with Zapier is arguably the ultimate integration in that it’s an integration whose sole purpose is to make it easier to integrate Shortcut with other tools. We’re talking levels upon levels upon levels of integrating here.

Twelve Days of Integrations: Dropbox

Fri, 18 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT

On this Eighth Day of Integrations, Shortcut brings to you: eight Dropboxes a'boxing. Or should it be a'dropping? We'll get back to you on that.

Shortcut Labs Reporting Enhancements

Thu, 17 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Today we released a set of charts and reporting enhancements as part of Shortcut Labs that will help you measure performance and make better, data driven decisions.

The Twelve Days of Integrations: GitLab

Thu, 17 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT

On the Seventh Day of Integrations, Shortcut gives to you a GitLab in a blog post. We'd give you seven of them, but there's only the one.

The Twelve Days of Integrations: Google Drive

Wed, 16 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT

On the Sixth Day of Integrations Shortcut gives to you: Google Drive. All of your important stuff, available from anywhere you happen to be. Can you believe it? This "cloud" concept is gonna really take off one day.

The Twelve Days of Integrations: Sentry

Tue, 15 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT

On the Fifth Day of Integrations Shortcut brings to you: Five Gold Rings! Wait, no, we mean Sentry! It's just really hard not to sing the "Five Gold Rings" part of the song.

The Twelve Days of Integrations: Slack

Sat, 12 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT

On the Fourth Day of Integrations Shortcut brings to you: Slack, the app that ensures that the four calling birds of yore put their calls into a nice, concise text message.

The Twelve Days of Integrations: Figma

Thu, 10 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT

On this Third Day of Integrations, Shortcut gives to you: Figma in a... pretty much anything you want. Like all web apps, Figma is a digital abstraction, making it difficult to place on a pear tree.

The Twelve Days of Integrations: CodeStream

Wed, 09 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT

On this First Day of Integrations, Shortcut gives to you: CodeStream. Which doesn’t make for a particularly catchy song, but does make for some pretty useful software.

The Twelve Days of Integrations: GitHub

Wed, 09 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT

On the Second Day of Integrations, Shortcut gave to me two GitHubs in a blog post. That's no joke: our integration works with both GitHub and GitHub Enterprise.

Shortcut Labs gives you early access to our latest and greatest features

Wed, 18 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Labs gives anyone with a Team Plan or higher early access to new Shortcut features before they're broadly released.

An update to our Terms of Service

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMT

We've updated our ToS. to note that if an organization is actively working in support of racism and discrimination, then its account would be subject to termination.

Going from a kitchen table to 100,000 customers, an interview with Dave Hayes, VP of Product at Sentry

Tue, 27 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Dave Hayes is the VP of Product at Sentry and was an early employee at PagerDuty. Read what he has to say about Product Management in the age of remote work.

The Shortcut guide to burndown charts

Wed, 14 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Burndown charts are not just useful line graphs to track the progress of your work, they're also emotional roller coasters that can make your team feel very behind or very ahead at any given moment. Here's how to get the most from the newest versions of our burndown charts.

What's a branching strategy and why would you ever even need one?

Wed, 30 Sep 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Branches make a lot of sense if you're a developer (or a tree, depending on the branch you're talking about) — they’re a nifty little place to keep your work-in-progress, make sense of new features, and work on issues. But if you’re not careful, you can get too much of a good thing.

Some version control best practices you might want to follow. (Up to you, though.)

Sat, 12 Sep 2020 00:00:00 GMT

If you don’t follow version control best practices, your development pipeline will be a hot mess. As apps get more complex and receive more feedback from users, it's key to ensure you're collaborating and shipping as efficiently as possible

Cycle time: a secret weapon of efficient software teams

Fri, 21 Aug 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Cycle time connects the dots between every KPI, allowing software development teams to understand and optimize their production processes and project manage their way ahead of the competition.

A quick look at our new layout and navigation

Fri, 14 Aug 2020 00:00:00 GMT

We made some pretty big improvements to the look and layout of Shortcut. Hopefully you like it! We think you will.

Project managing your way through technical debt

Wed, 12 Aug 2020 00:00:00 GMT

A dive into how to keep yourself and your team accountable by making the restitution of technical debt a normal part of your software development process.

Use our Importer to easily switch from Jira to Shortcut

Thu, 30 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Switching project management tools may seem like a daunting challenge. Your team has to adjust to new terminology, workflows, and routines. We get it, and we're here to help! This post will outline the most important concepts to grasp early on to help ease the transition.

Housemates Hack Pack: Cutting through the project management noise

Tue, 28 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMT

In this week's Housemates Hack Pack, Tiffany walks us through putting the Activity Feed to use, taking control of your notifications, and grooming your project backlog with Iterations.

Why choose DevOps or Agile, when you can instead choose DevOps and Agile?

Fri, 10 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Agile and DevOps have both amassed a cult following. Books — fiction and nonfiction (little known fact: the Werewolves and Vampires in Twilight are meant to represent DevOps and Agile) — have been written about them. Conferences have been themed around them. Countless internet arguments have been started about them.

Housemates Hack Pack: Work smartest, not hardest

Tue, 07 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMT

In this week's Housemates Hack Pack, Tiffany walks us through finding recently viewed Stories, creating Story and Epic templates, and how to put the Action Bar to good use.

Outgrown Trello? Use our Importer to switch to Shortcut

Mon, 29 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMT

If Trello isn't meeting your growing software team's needs, Shortcut is the answer. Shortcut provides more structure, options, flexibility, and visibility for your team.

Custom Workflows help make Shortcut work for everyone

Sat, 27 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Custom Workflows are a crux of what makes Shortcut so flexible for all teams. In this post, we’ll give examples of different approaches to Workflows, detailing how to use Workflow States creatively so that you can set up a great flow that matches the internal workflow for your team.

Return of the Housemates Hackpack for Shortcut

Thu, 18 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMT

In this week's Housemates Hackpack, Mel walks us through using custom Spaces, searching with inverse operators, and changing Story density.

The joys and unenjoys of working from home with kids

Wed, 17 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMT

We talked to several different parents about their experiences working from home with their kids, and they dove into some of the funniest and most interesting moments they’ve tackled while handling two jobs during the pandemic as both parents and work-from-homers.

Commitment to Action

Sat, 13 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMT

We've been doing a lot of thinking for the last couple of weeks about everything going on in the world and what we can do to make Shortcut a better place to work, a place that is working to be actively anti-racist and a better corporate citizen.

Spring Hackathon roundup - Pinned Stories, custom Git Branch formatting, a secret (shhh) video game, and more!

Thu, 28 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Last week we hosted our third Shortcut Hackathon and our first fully remote one! While circumstances were a little different from our last Hackathon, we brought the same creative enthusiasm and teamwork to the table.

Housemates Hack Pack for Shortcut

Fri, 22 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Each post in this new collection will highlight around 3 tips & tricks that our very own Housemates (that’s what we call our employees... so don’t worry we’re all appropriately socially distancing and not in a house hanging out together) put to use every day in the app as we use Shortcut to build Shortcut.

Running engineering meetups and other community events remotely

Thu, 21 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

In this edition of Distributing Joy, we talk to Nick Stargu, a San Francisco comedian who has successfully taken a long running Bay Area comedy show, Talkies, from an in-person only event to an entertaining live, online comedy show. We discuss how his experience can apply to engineering meetups, panel talks, and other community events.

What is acceptance testing and do you really need to do it?

Tue, 12 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Yes, you really do need to do acceptance testing, whether it's simple beta testing or more than that. Here's the how and why.

Communicate faster with @mention notifications in Slack

Thu, 07 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

The newest update to our Slack integration helps you communicate faster and with less context switching. Now, when someone mentions you in Shortcut, you'll receive a Slack notification that you can respond and react to directly in Slack.

Work from home forever, or never work from home again?

Wed, 06 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

For some, working from home is ideal, the best way possible to get things done and enjoy their life. For others, it’s considerably less than ideal, blurring the line between their work and home lives, and spreading added stress throughout all hours of the day.

How a Product Manager uses filtered Spaces to zoom in on key work

Fri, 01 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

When you filter a view on your Shortcut Stories page, you can save that view as a permanent Space, making it easy to return to later and at any time. Here's how to make your own Spaces.

Next up for Build: New Reports, Timeline View, Importers, and more!

Wed, 15 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMT

At Shortcut, we feel lucky that our employees are currently safe and healthy, and that our service remains useful regardless of whether or not our customers are all in an office together or working remotely from each other. This means one of the best things we can do right now is continue improving Shortcut to ensure we’re able to better serve all of our customers. Here's what we're working on: Cycle and Lead Time Reports, Timeline Views, Group enhancements, Slack and VCS Integration improvements, Trello and Jira Importers, a CLI tool, and more!

Next up for Write: Story and Doc relationships, better discoverability, and more!

Tue, 14 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Coming soon to Write: Doc<> Story relationships, better discoverability and more

A crash course in VPN protocols for newly remote teams

Fri, 10 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Leaping into the minutiae of Internet security may not seem particularly interesting when everyone is worried about their own personal health and security, but bad actors won’t wait patiently for you to be ready, and unprepared remote workers is an opportunity they will look to exploit.

The best Shortcut features to use while you (try to) work from home

Fri, 03 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Working remotely can be stressful and distracting under the best circumstances, and these are not the best circumstances. Here are some features in Shortcut that could help make working from home a little more like working from work.

13 SQL skills that might make you a better engineer. Or at least better at SQL.

Wed, 01 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMT

A guide for how to go from knowing nothing about SQL to knowing something about SQL to knowing a lot about SQL.

How to not go insane while working from home

Sat, 28 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Working from home — especially if you’re not used to it, and double especially in a situation where you’re expected to be either totally isolated or surrounded by your entire family all day and night — can absolutely suck. How can you deal with it without going bonkers?

How to manage your backlog with Shortcut

Fri, 20 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Shortcut's flexibility makes it easy to manage your backlog no matter what sort of process your team follows internally. Here are just some of the ways you can use Shortcut to enhance your process and get a deeper view into your backlog management.

What we've learned from being a remote first company

Fri, 13 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMT

We’ve had successes, we’ve had failures, and we’ve gotten fairly good at managing teams spread out across the world. And we have a few tips here that we could have used when we were just starting out.

Distributed teams are the future of software. Embrace it.

Thu, 05 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMT

This is the first post in “Distributing Joy” our new series on managing, maintaining, and growing a distributed workforce through both technology and culture. We kick off the series with our thoughts on what the remote teams of the not-too-distant future will look like.

Execute commands more efficiently with the Action Bar

Thu, 06 Feb 2020 00:00:00 GMT

The Action Bar is a quick launch command menu that puts many important actions in Shortcut at your fingertips. Execute commands with just a few keystrokes so you can get more work done, faster.

Building the next stage of Shortcut - announcing $25M in Series B funding led by Greylock Partners

Thu, 23 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Andrew and I started Shortcut 5 years ago with the idea that we could build a better way for product and engineering teams to collaborate on the work that they do every day. We wanted to build something that would be a collaborative home for software teams that would bring together all of the work done by engineers, product managers, designers, and everyone involved in the software development process.

How the VP of Engineering at Glitch plans and prioritizes work for a 40 person software team without stifling creativity

Fri, 03 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Last month, we sat down with James Turnbull, the VP Engineering at Glitch. James has been running engineering teams for a while. Some of his previous roles include CTO at Microsoft for Startups, VP Services at Docker, CTO Kickstarter, VP Engineering at Venmo and VP Technology at Puppet Labs!

Thinking beyond the roadmap - the 2019 Shortcut Hackathon

Tue, 31 Dec 2019 00:00:00 GMT

At the end of each year, Housemates from every department form teams and participate in a beloved Shortcut tradition, our annual Hackathon! This two-day event embodies our culture of joy, collaboration, and innovation. It has become the perfect playground for experimentation, passion projects, and discovery.

Shortcut’s 2019 in review

Tue, 17 Dec 2019 00:00:00 GMT

2019 was undoubtedly Shortcut’s biggest year since launching our beta in 2015. Find out more about everything we shipped, launched and added this year.

Leveraging psychological safety to ship business value

Tue, 03 Dec 2019 00:00:00 GMT

A values-based approach to product development

Automate work and ramp up productivity with our new Zapier integration

Tue, 26 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Our Zapier integration is now out of beta, so you can automatically create Stories from over 1000+ connected apps. The new version of the app makes it even easier to automate many of your repetitive and tedious tasks.

Real-time design collaboration with the new Figma integration

Tue, 19 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMT

The Figma Shortcut integration enables live preview embeds of your public Figma files. Now when a Figma link is pasted into any markdown text field in Shortcut, a live preview will appear! If you add a live preview link or links to the External Tickets section it makes it easy to scan your Stories for designs. Best of all, the Figma integration is ready to use today, no configuration needed!

Upgrade to the Shortcut API v3 for more stability and support

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Upgrade to the new Shortcut API v3 for more stability and support

Coming soon: Groups, to enable cross-functional teams to collaborate faster, at scale

Tue, 12 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMT

We are excited to be working on a new feature called "Groups". We believe that collections of individuals in a company are a critical component of helping organizations ship value to customers and ultimately advance their business. Groups will help make collaborating with your team easier so you can deliver more quality software to customers, faster.

Evolving logging from free-form text to structured data

Fri, 01 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMT

How our backend logging evolved from free-form text to structured data, and some of the lessons we learned along the way

Building Dark Mode into a complex web app

Tue, 03 Sep 2019 00:00:00 GMT

We’ve designed Shortcut to fit in seamlessly with the toolset of the modern software team, and Dark Mode is a part of that product vision. We also wanted to try to be the first Project Management tool on the market to offer Dark Mode support. Read on to find out how we did it.

Shortcut for marketing teams

Thu, 29 Aug 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Shortcut is great for marketers working closely with product and engineering teams. Learn how our marketing team uses Shortcut to market Shortcut. Manage your entire marketing and creative process in Shortcut to tear down silos and make room to create experiences customers will love.

More reliable webhooks with queues

Thu, 29 Aug 2019 00:00:00 GMT

How we improved reliability of incoming webhook processing in Shortcut by dividing responsibility among different processes connected by queues.

Every software engineer asks questions

Mon, 26 Aug 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Tips on addressing imposter syndrome head on and facilitating a culture of learning.

Why you should teach your non-engineering team members to code

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Teaching non-engineers how to code can be a fun way to help them better understand how the company's products are built, and build camaraderie.

Shortcut for Designers and Creative Teams

Fri, 16 Aug 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Shortcut is the easiest way for design teams to collaborate with product managers and engineers, manage their workflow, and get results. Create Stories to manage, track, and give status updates on everything from design requests to meeting agendas. Collaborate easily and communicate with context.

Lessons learned on our journey to SOC 2 compliance

Thu, 08 Aug 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Shortcut recently gained certification in SOC 2! Here's a run down of how we achieved it, and the lessons we learned along the way.

Monolith, meet mono-repo

Thu, 01 Aug 2019 00:00:00 GMT

The Shortcut backend started out as a single monolithic application. In this second article in a series about our backend architecture, we describe how we started to break up the monolith into multiple applications.

A cautionary tale on using microservices (when building software for others)

Tue, 30 Jul 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Considering a microservice architecture for your application? Let's take a look at when microservices make sense and when they are overkill.

Common fails in a remote software team (and how to fix them)

Tue, 30 Jul 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Remote working comes with a unique set of challenge. Here are six common reasons for failure in remote software teams, and how to fix them.

How to use Iterations and track velocity in Shortcut

Thu, 25 Jul 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Senior Product Manager, Victor Wu shares best practices to follow when using Iterations in Shortcut.

Iterations is here to support sprint planning!

Thu, 25 Jul 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Use Iterations to plan and manage your work in timeboxed periods, visualize your work with reports and dashboards and optimize your team’s performance over time.

Teams have been renamed to Story Workflows

Mon, 22 Jul 2019 00:00:00 GMT

We've changed Teams to Story Workflows for a more intuitive user experience; none of the functionality has changed!

How we didn't rewrite Shortcut

Thu, 18 Jul 2019 00:00:00 GMT

The Shortcut backend started out as a single monolithic application. In this article, the first in a series about our backend architecture, we describe the advantages of a monolith and how we knew it was time to change.

6 ways software engineering leaders lead successful teams

Tue, 16 Jul 2019 00:00:00 GMT

How do you master a senior role? What are the skills necessary? Today, we'll explore what it takes to lead.

Why every developer should have a passion project

Thu, 30 May 2019 00:00:00 GMT

For many experienced developers, passion projects are a thing of the past. However, not only can passion projects reinvigorate a developer's passion for programming, they can also turn into huge company-wide wins.

Why you should always involve junior developers in code review

Fri, 03 May 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Junior developers are often ignored when inviting engineers to review code, due to a perceived lack of extensive knowledge or expertise. But involving such a fresh pair of eyes, however junior, can greatly benefit you, your team and your code.

Find work faster with Autosuggest for Search Operators

Tue, 30 Apr 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Autosuggest for Search Operators make it faster and easier to find the work you're looking for in Shortcut. Search Operators now automatically populate in the Navigational Search bar, eliminating the pain of memorizing operators so you can search smarter and work faster.

A developer's guide to hacking joy at your local hackerspace

Wed, 24 Apr 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Creating "play energy" is essential for balancing the "work energy" of life as a software engineer. One engineer gives his account of how he uses hackerspaces to get that sort of energy.

Fix errors faster with the new Sentry Integration

Tue, 23 Apr 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Now it is faster and easier to connect Shortcut to Sentry’s open-source error monitoring tool so you can fix and manage errors more quickly.

How we use clojure.spec, Datomic and webhooks to integrate with version control systems

Mon, 15 Apr 2019 00:00:00 GMT

This post describes the system that is powering our new integrations with Bitbucket, GitLab and, soon, GitHub.

Find work faster with enhanced Navigational Search

Wed, 10 Apr 2019 00:00:00 GMT

The latest Search enhancements make it easy to find Epics and Stories, giving you more visibility into your work with less effort.

"It's free", "it's open source" and 5 other reasons why VS Code is so popular with developers

Tue, 09 Apr 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Launched in 2015, VS Code has captivated the attention and loyalty of software engineers around the world. But why do developers love it so much? We asked a bunch of them to find out.

Merge projects seamlessly with the new GitLab and Shortcut integration

Tue, 19 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Associate merge requests, branches, and commits from a GitLab Project to a Shortcut Story to save you time and facilitate easier collaboration throughout your organization. This integration works with GitLab.com and GitLab 9.5 or higher.

"Don't deploy on Friday" and 3 other "unwritten rules" of software engineering

Thu, 14 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Software engineering has a set of "unwritten rules" which, by way of social contract, developers are expected to adhere to. Here are 4 of those "unwritten rules".

How we use Labels for the product management of Shortcut + how it all fits together

Fri, 08 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMT

It may come as no real surprise that we use the project management tool Shortcut to build and manage Shortcut! We're often asked how, exactly, we do that. This series details how we use Shortcut for product management.

How we use Milestones & Epics for the product management of Shortcut

Fri, 08 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Accountability is what separates a software engineer from a programmer

Wed, 06 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMT

The title of software engineering requires no formal exams or certifications to use. But without being able to hold yourself accountable to your product, its users and your company, then you may as well just call yourself a coder.

How we use Story Workflows (née Teams) & Projects for the product management of Shortcut

Wed, 06 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMT

How we use Organizations & Workspaces for the product management of Shortcut

Tue, 05 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Letting go of frustration is the first step to tackling legacy or inherited code

Mon, 04 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Inheriting old code is always a scary proposition to a software engineer, but tackling it doesn't need to be frightening experience. This post details 4 steps to bear in mind when dealing with legacy code.

How to know when it's time to refactor your software's code

Wed, 27 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Refactoring code is a necessary but often cumbersome process. It's done to introduce more stability into - or address problems with - existing code. This blog post details some tell tale signs that indicate when it's time to refactor.

Automate your workflow with the Bitbucket Cloud and Shortcut integration

Tue, 19 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Save time, reduce context switching, and improve collaboration and clarity throughout your organization with the new Bitbucket Cloud and Shortcut integration.

Software engineers share the best advice they ever got

Wed, 06 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT

The software engineering community is one that thrives on collaborative problem solving and sharing experience. In this blog post, software engineers share the most valuable advice they ever got from other engineers.

What is your product’s belief system?

Tue, 29 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Mission and vision statements are essential communication tools for any business. Being able to articulate a product belief system, however, can help communicate a much greater sense of purpose.

Organize your Workflow with Shortcut Spaces

Tue, 15 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Get best practices for creating Spaces that will help you manage your own workflow as well as track progress of all projects in your organization.

How we use ES modules to speed up frontend development in a large application

Mon, 17 Dec 2018 00:00:00 GMT

When bundling modules became cumbersome for developers, we turned to the new module script tag to resolve dependencies directly in the browser, skipping the build step entirely.

Collaborate and organize, effortlessly, with drag and drop Stories, push notifications and more on Shortcut for iOS v2.1

Mon, 19 Nov 2018 00:00:00 GMT

With the latest update to Shortcut for iOS we're shipping drag and drop Stories, push notifications and more. It's now even easier to ideate, create and collaborate from the convenience of your iPhone or iPad.

Introducing Enterprise Edition

Tue, 30 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Build and collaborate at scale with SSO, priority support, dedicated account management, volume discounts and more.

Introducing Story Templates and 5 steps to get started!

Thu, 04 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMT

With the Story Templates feature, you can create Templates for your most commonly created Feature, Bug or Chore.

Introducing Organizations & Workspaces

Mon, 02 Jul 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Introducing Organizations & Workspaces

Announcing Custom Epic Workflows

Mon, 25 Jun 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Custom Epic Workflow states make it easier to communicate the progression of your team's work from idea to done.

Searching Across Time

Thu, 07 Jun 2018 00:00:00 GMT

We’ve recently rolled out date-based search operators to help you locate your Stories across time and drill down into your team’s projections and performance.

Gaining experience and growing empathy with Mia Judkins of ModCloth

Mon, 14 May 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Mia Judkins, lead project manager at ModCloth, has had a varied career, including publishing and getting laid off unexpectedly. Read on to find out what you can learn from her experiences.

Sowing seeds with Idan Cohen of GROW

Wed, 25 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Idan Cohen has never shied away from a challenge, whether that’s helping to usher in a new era of TV technology or pioneering products. Get his insights as a successful startup cofounder in the post.

Sharing a love of dance music with Pam Hernandez of Boiler Room

Wed, 11 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Bringing your personal interests to work can create an especially fulfilling career. Find out how Pam Hernandez, head of product at Boiler Room, has created a passion-driven career doing just that.

Making metrics matter - a conversation with Baremetrics and Geckoboard.

Sun, 08 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT

A discussion with experts from Baremetrics and Geckoboard about tracking startup metrics.

More Visibility with Observers

Wed, 28 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMT

While Shortcut powers collaboration and communication across your organization, sometimes certain members of your team only need the ability to have a look or be notified of changes.Find out how you can now grant read-only access to key stakeholders.

Error tracking with Sentry, Rollbar, and HoneyBadger

Wed, 21 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Tracking website and mobile errors now just got a little easier withour new integrations to Sentry and Honeybadger.

On The Move with Blue Thomas of Updater

Mon, 19 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMT

An interview with Updater’s Director of Services Engineering.

What in the world is a developer evangelist?

Wed, 07 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMT

While marketers can build a brand and sales people can pursue high-leverage deals, when it comes to getting people (especially software engineers!) to try your product, it often comes down to word of mouth.

Now With Zendesk!

Fri, 23 Feb 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Announcing the release of the Shortcut Zendesk integration and external ticket support.

The rise of the digital classroom - a conversation with LearnZillion, Empatico and GoNoodle

Tue, 20 Feb 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Learn how LearnZillion, Empatico, and GoNoodle are creating tech solutions to empower teachers and students.

Announcing Shortcut for iOS

Thu, 15 Feb 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Announcing the release of Shortcut’s mobile application for Apple’s iOS devices.

Re-envisioning search

Wed, 14 Feb 2018 00:00:00 GMT

A discussion with Shortcut developers about the newly revamped architecture of the Search feature and share tips for other teams.

Daily standups with Shortcut

Tue, 30 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Exploring various ways to track team status with Shortcut project management tools.

How to build a winning support team

Thu, 25 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Abby Armada, Customer Support Lead at Shortcut, shares tips for building successful tech support teams.

Tips for building an international team with Siavash Ghorbani of Tictail

Tue, 16 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Unlike many kids who grow up with a passion for technology, Siavash Ghorbani, CTO and co-founder of online marketplace Tictail, didn’t immediately want to turn his lifelong hobby into a career.

Conveying warmth with Jaclyn Spangler of FullStory

Wed, 20 Dec 2017 00:00:00 GMT

A discussion with Jaclyn Spangler of FullStory on the intersection of product and customer support.

Shortcut Series A Financing

Tue, 12 Dec 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Today we announced that Shortcut has raised $10M from Battery Ventures (along with our existing investors) to continue to grow and build out the Shortcut software project management platform. Since…

Bug reports to Shortcut with new Instabug and Bugsee integrations

Mon, 11 Dec 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Shortcut project management software announces integration with Instabug and Bugsee reporting tools.

Transitioning Into Tech

Mon, 04 Dec 2017 00:00:00 GMT

As the tech industry booms, more and more people find themselves working at startups despite their lacking a traditional computer science or engineering background. Find out from others how they moved into tech and engineering!

Iterating in People Ops with Thaisa Money of Geckoboard

Mon, 27 Nov 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Profile of HR expert Thaisa Money, Head of People Ops at Geckoboard.

Continuous learning: An interview with LaunchDarkly Co-Founder/CTO John Kodumal

Mon, 20 Nov 2017 00:00:00 GMT

A discussion with John Kodumal, the co-founder/CTO of LaunchDarkly, a continuous delivery platform.

Rolling into the future at Piaggio

Fri, 27 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

A discussion with the two engineering leads at Piaggio Fast Forward, where they are innovating at the intersection of robotics and mobility.

How we empower our users with Webhooks and APIs

Thu, 12 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

How Shortcut enables their users to build open-source libraries and integrations with their public API and Webhooks.

Overcoming Challenges at the Intersection of Health and Technology

Tue, 03 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Tips from healthtech leaders on how to navigate the US and global regulatory environment.

Building for growth: A conversation with Shortcut’s Paul Groudas and Stuart Sierra

Fri, 29 Sep 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Paul Groudas and Stuart Sierra are the two newest members of the Shortcut team. Their addition marks Shortcut’s deepening commitment to improving site infrastructure and performance

Customer-focused Product Management with Molly Wolfberg of Wistia

Wed, 27 Sep 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Wistia Product Manager Molly Wolfberg discusses how she leads a customer-centered team.

Announcing Story Workflows for Shortcut

Wed, 20 Sep 2017 00:00:00 GMT

The Shortcut Story Workflows (formerly known as Teams) feature enables departments across the organization— from Product to Engineering to Marketing — to use their own workflows while coordinating on high-level goals.

How the former CTO of Kickstarter finds meaning in leading

Wed, 13 Sep 2017 00:00:00 GMT

We discuss leadership lessons learned by Kickstarter’s former CTO and how he turned his energy to building technology for compassion.

Growing a transparent team with Brett Collinson of Backpack Health

Thu, 07 Sep 2017 00:00:00 GMT

After 20+ years of working with companies ranging from Codecademy to Mercedes-Benz, Brett Collinson turned his experience and expertise to a new position as Senior VP of Product at a health tech startup.

What does it really take to scale a tech team?

Thu, 17 Aug 2017 00:00:00 GMT

As your startup grows, it’s likely that you’ll have at least one period of high growth. And when that time comes, you’ll likely to need add a lot of employees in a short amount of time to keep up with demand and workload. Here's some tips on what it takes to successfully scale up.

Onboarding and Reducing Churn with Kelly Wu of PolicyGenius

Wed, 09 Aug 2017 00:00:00 GMT

We chatted with PolicyGenius Engineering Manager Kelly Wu about their unique approach to scaling up and staying on track.

Getting Remote Teams On The Same Page

Wed, 02 Aug 2017 00:00:00 GMT

More and more companies are moving to have fully remote, or partially remote teams. Here are some tips and tools that will help being a productive remote team.

Octane AI’s VP of Product on fostering open communication

Wed, 26 Jul 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Megan Berry, the Head of Product of OctaneAI, sits down with us to discuss how the obstacles team have to overcome to work remotely, and how Shortcut helps alleviate some of the stresses.

Iterating with your team in Shortcut

Thu, 20 Jul 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Shortcut was built with a Kanban flow in mind, making it easy for teams to complete their tasks. Being that software teams work in time-boxed iterations, here’s one way to approach it.

Building and motivating your development team: An interview with LearnZillion’s CTO

Tue, 18 Jul 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Shortcut serves as the project management tool for Learnzillion, and EdTech company that helps teachers across the country. Here’s how Ian makes it happen.

WWDC 2017 and What It Means For Developers

Sun, 16 Jul 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Find out how key announcements from World Wide Developers Conference (Apple’s annual developers conference, otherwise known as WWDC) will affect developers.

How to Add Value With Cross-Functional Teams

Thu, 13 Jul 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Here’s how to add value to your business, product, and team, by having a collaborative cross-functional team.

Going mobile with React Native

Thu, 06 Jul 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Here’s how Shortcut is using React Native to create the Shortcut Mobile App.

How to lead better brainstorming sessions

Wed, 28 Jun 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Looking to learn how to facilitate a brainstorming session? Look no further, this blog goes through the basics.

Visualize and improve your team’s progress with Shortcut

Tue, 20 Jun 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Here’s all the ways that Shortcut users can utilize reports to find out how productive their team is and can be.

What Your VP of Engineering Wants You to Know

Wed, 14 Jun 2017 00:00:00 GMT

The Vice President of Engineering is not the same job as a CTO. While opinions differ as to what each role entails, here are some tips that’ll help you understand what a VP of Engineering wants to know.

Summary of the Shortcut service disruption on June 1, 2017

Fri, 09 Jun 2017 00:00:00 GMT

On the afternoon of June 1, 2017, Shortcut experienced a partial service outage that occurred between 2:07pm ET and 3:52pm ET. Here's what happened...

Labels for Epics and Milestones!

Wed, 07 Jun 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Within Shortcut, you can now add labels to your epic and milestones, allowing you organize your team’s project management process.

How Shortcut became remote-friendly

Wed, 24 May 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Becoming a remote-friendly company isn’t as difficult as it is made out to be. Here’s how it works for our geographically-dispersed team.

5 common product development mistakes (and how to avoid them)

Wed, 17 May 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Are you developing a product? Be sure to avoid these common pitfalls in the product development process.

The Shortcut calendar integration is right on time!

Wed, 10 May 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Shortcut’s new calendar integration feature was made to help people see when their tasks are complete in their personal/work calendars.

What your Designers want you to know

Mon, 08 May 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Ever wonder what motivates and drives designers to push out amazing products and concepts? Here are some tips that’ll help you understand what your Designers want you to know.

How to generate awesome ideas (and then develop products with them)

Mon, 01 May 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Ideas are fickle — sometimes, they come to you completely unprompted in the shower. But sometimes, you know that you need that next-level. Here are some tips to help you generate awesome ideas and then take them to market as products.

B2B vs. B2C Product Management

Thu, 13 Apr 2017 00:00:00 GMT

A quick comparison of B2B and B2C product management techniques from the “Product Man” himself, Drew Dillon.

Does your team have trouble meeting deadlines?

Mon, 10 Apr 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Do you have trouble meeting your timelines? Well, if you’re sick of messing up your product development timeline, read on.

Auditing with Reified Transactions in Datomic

Sat, 08 Apr 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Datomic is the database that underlies the Shortcut application, and one of the great things about Datomic is its implementation of the…

10 must-read books for Project Managers

Thu, 06 Apr 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Here are ten books that every project manager should have on their bookshelf.

Reporting for Shortcut: Now in Beta!

Thu, 30 Mar 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Software development teams of all sizes use Shortcut to manage their projects and check the status of their efforts. However, in deeper conversations with users over the past few months, it became…

What your CTO wants you to know

Thu, 23 Mar 2017 00:00:00 GMT

It takes a well-rounded team with different skills and roles to build and grow a successful software product and company. The CTO is concerned with the technical direction of the company as a whole. So, what matters most to them?

How to use Story Types

Tue, 21 Mar 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Shortcut comes with three Story types: Features, Bugs and Chores. Using story types can tell you a lot about your projects and where they’re headed, but there is some confusion about how to use them…

What your Software Engineers want you to know

Mon, 13 Mar 2017 00:00:00 GMT

A few developers working hard can get a lot done, but it takes a well-rounded team with different skills and roles to build and grow a successful software product and company. Here are some tips that’ll help you understand what Software Engineers want you to know.

The latest in tech: #Cloudbleed, retrospectives, echo chambers, and more

Fri, 24 Feb 2017 00:00:00 GMT

We’re almost at the end of February, so it’s time for another roundup of the best news & resources from the tech industry! The CloudFlare #CloudBleed leak is the big news item of the day. If you’re…

What your Product Managers want you to know

Tue, 21 Feb 2017 00:00:00 GMT

To get a feel for what the product manager does, you can think of them as the CEO of the product. Here are some tips that’ll help you understand what your Product Managers want you to know.

What your Project Managers want you to know

Wed, 08 Feb 2017 00:00:00 GMT

The project manager’s job, at the simplest level, is to make sure that work gets done on time, while staying at or under budget. Here are some tips that’ll help you understand what your Project Managers want you to know.

Using Datomic? Here’s How to Move from PostgreSQL to DynamoDB Local.

Wed, 01 Feb 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Here at Shortcut, we leverage Datomic as our primary data store. If you’re unfamiliar, Datomic is an immutable database that is designed…

Why we redesigned the Story view

Tue, 24 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT

One of the challenges of an expanding feature set is that it can create structural problems that a design wasn’t originally built to solve. At some point, the design needs to be revised so it can support all existing requirements, and provide a stable foundation for future changes.

7 tips to help you set (and actually meet!) your professional goals this year

Tue, 10 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT

It’s that time of year again — when we all look at the year ahead and set our ambitious goals. But the stats paint a bleak picture: all the data we have says that only a minority of people actually…

How we build Shortcut with Shortcut

Tue, 03 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT

On an almost daily basis people ask me how to best use Shortcut. While there’s no perfect answer for every team, I want to share a bit about the process that we’ve evolved internally that we use to…

How to stay focused through the holiday haze

Wed, 21 Dec 2016 00:00:00 GMT

A new year is on its way. For many of us, this also means deadlines and general end-of-the-year crunch time. But with the holiday season afoot, it can be near impossible to focus on finishing up your…

Updates: Story staleness; Story positions in the column

Tue, 18 Oct 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Story “staleness” has long been hardcoded into Shortcut as a thermometer that turned up on any Story cards that sat in a Workflow state for more than a few days. While it was undoubtedly a helpful…

Archiving in Shortcut explained

Thu, 06 Oct 2016 00:00:00 GMT

It was with great excitement that we rolled out Story archiving in Shortcut. We figured users would be excited to have a place where deserted Stories could be sent to live out their retirement…

Do good. Use Shortcut

Tue, 04 Oct 2016 00:00:00 GMT

We’ve long tried to err on the side of simplicity in Shortcut. There is so much information that might be useful to surface, but sometimes it can be hard to discern what is signal and what is noise…

Do good. Use Shortcut.

Thu, 11 Aug 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Since our launch, Shortcut has supported upstart startups by offering ourFree Planto teams of less than 4. We are a small team too, and we understand that — regardless of your size — to build the best products you have to use the right tools.

Tracking deploys with Shortcut and GitHub

Fri, 05 Aug 2016 00:00:00 GMT

This is worth doing for a number of reasons. For project managers, automated state changes means your data is more accurate, which means Shortcut will be better at providing guidance around how much…

Shortcut API V1

Wed, 13 Jul 2016 00:00:00 GMT

We know that Shortcut users come in many skill levels, but we’ve been impressed by how many of you have been willing to roll up your sleeves to tinker with our public API while it was still in beta…

Multiple Edits, Loading Icons

Fri, 10 Jun 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Get more done with fewer clicks now with the new Multiple Edit feature. In just a few steps, you can quickly update Owners, Projects, Epics, Estimate Points, Due Dates, Labels, Workflow States…

Epically filtered

Thu, 09 Jun 2016 00:00:00 GMT

With our newly revamped Epics page, you can now filter down to view only the Epics that matter to you. Whether you are looking at completed Epics, tracking progress on Epics in progress or planning…

The Shortcut GitHub integration

Thu, 12 May 2016 00:00:00 GMT

We’re extremely proud of our GitHub integration and excited about the way it is enabling more developers to communicate their progress while staying in their workflow. Check out the short helper…

Shortcut is so relatable

Wed, 11 May 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Connecting stories to one other just got a lot easier in Shortcut! Now instead of just mentioning Story relationships in comments, you can indicate relationships in their own section. Whether two…

Building a SaaS App? You should probably stick to a single subdomain.

Fri, 06 May 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Of all of the big architectural decisions we’ve made over the last 2 years building Shortcut, we’re lucky that (so far) only one of those decisions was a mistake worth rewriting a lot of code for…

Get attached!

Tue, 12 Apr 2016 00:00:00 GMT

We’re excited to announce that we now support Google Drive, Box, and Dropbox attachments. Now with just a few clicks, you can easily attach documents, images, and spreadsheets to add more information…

3 tips for preventing team tool fatigue

Mon, 04 Apr 2016 00:00:00 GMT

As painful as it can be to realize that a certain software tool is no longer working for your team, trying to continue working with something that is no longer a fit can be worse still.

Automating Shortcut using your existing Github workflow

Thu, 24 Mar 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Now you can stop letting your stories get stale. Your existing Github workflow can now automate Shortcut for you.

Consider yourself notified!

Thu, 10 Mar 2016 00:00:00 GMT

It takes a village to run an engineering team. Some team members need to know everything that happens *as* it happens, while others would prefer to keep their heads down and knock out tasks…

Say Some Things!

Tue, 12 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMT

While we’ve long supported emojis, @ -mentions, and story linking using markdown in Shortcut, it was admittedly a bit of an ordeal. We're happy to say that we’ve made some exciting updates to the comments box.

Branch out with us!

Mon, 11 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMT

With the new and improved Shortcut GitHub integration, you can associate your commits, pull requests, and feature branches with your Shortcut stories.

The Shortcut activity feed

Thu, 07 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Here at Shortcut we know that Inbox Zero-ness is next to godliness, and we never want to be the cause of anyone’s overstuffed mailbox. So when many of you told us that that the email notifications…

Old year, new-ish look!

Wed, 30 Dec 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Just in time for 2016, we’ve streamlined the process of editing stories so that they open directly in a modal dialog. We’ve also made some design tweaks to optimize the interface, so that the comment…

Redesigned Labels Page, Task Improvements

Thu, 03 Dec 2015 00:00:00 GMT

We redesigned the Labels page to make it easier to track progress if you’re using Labels to track sprints. We also added two small features to Tasks.

Meet the Team: Andrew Childs, Co-founder of Shortcut

Tue, 10 Nov 2015 00:00:00 GMT

When I graduated I didn't really know what I was doing and needed some way to support myself, and web design seemed interesting. This was back when people were building static websites in Flash 4...

Meet the team: Kurt Schrader, the CEO

Thu, 15 Oct 2015 00:00:00 GMT

I’m the CEO and Co-Founder of Shortcut, which means that I do everything nobody else wants to do. Occasionally I write Clojure code but generally I try to figure out how to help people build better…

Estimations, your way!

Thu, 08 Oct 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Over the past few months, many of you told us you’d like more flexibility with estimation scales — some teams use Fibonacci, some are linear, some don’t use points at all. We heard that feedback and…

Better tools

Fri, 25 Sep 2015 00:00:00 GMT

When everything works, the reader flashes green and emits a pleasing tone; if something goes wrong, it glows blue — never red. Red lights are forbidden at Disney, as they imply something bad…

Shortcut: Better tools for software engineering teams

Tue, 21 Jul 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Over the last 20 years I’ve been lucky enough to work with some of the best engineers in the business, the type of people that can take an abstract concept and turn it into an amazing piece of work…