Shortcut

Pros

Clubhouse brought us a new set of features and ways to organize stories and tasks that we didn't know we wanted/needed. We have always stuck with tools that were able to help improve our kanban based workflow rather than the simple project board tools like Trello that cater to everyone more than software/product development specifically.

There are few tools out there that provide what we are looking for: the ability to organize and label stories with more granularity than a single label (estimates, types, project, priorities, epic, etc), and the ability to have reports like velocity and burndown charts.

Cons

It is a very small thing, but it would be nice if we could adjust the color scheme of both things like labels beyond the default options, as well as adjust the overall interface colors.

Pros

1. The app is very easy to configure & set up.
2. The user experience is seamless & functionality is very self-explanatory.
3. There are multiple ways to configure each component, so you can set up the app according to what works best for you & your company. (No "one size fits all" model.)
4. The ability to set up different workflows for different departments has been a huge help for us.

Cons

1. It's a little hard to envision how each of the components should be set up for your organization when you're first getting in there (i.e., projects, workflows, milestones, epics, stories), so we ended up changing the setup as we went along after the initial configuration. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, as it allowed us to improve the way we currently did things.
2. The biggest issue we have now, after using the app for a while, is that stories do not populate into the Gantt charts, only epics. This means if we have one-off tasks that are added as stories, those do not pull into the report we'd like. For that reason, we have to set up an entire epic just to set up a single story, for reporting purposes. I think it would be great if you had the option to pull the Gantt reports at the epic or story-level.

Pros

I think the best part of Clubhouse is the robust API that can allow a dev team to add or complement to the existing platform. Clubhouse seems designed for teams focusing on a product or a small portfolio of similar products or complimentary features. It does not seem designed for a consulting or agency style development shop.

Cons

Clubhouse is lacking in a number of areas that should be expected features in agile project management software. Completion dates are buried, no project budgeting or hourly rates, no invoicing or adding expenses, time tracking, resource management, personal task lists, custom fields, dependencies. It also seemed overwhelming to get set up and running.

Pros

Before switching to Shortcut, we used Jira. While Jira has plenty of features, we found it a bit cumbersome and the performance of the interface was atrocious (everything single task was incredibly slow, even the most basic activities had a noticeable delay).

The first major benefit we saw with Shortcut was the speed of interaction - instead of waiting for the interface to catch up, we could just log in and get things done.

The integrations with various source control platforms (we use the Gitlab integration) also helps keep task statuses up to date without even having to open the web interface.

Overall the speed of the interface and the available integrations lead to a feeling that Shortcut never "gets in our way".

Cons

We started out paying for Shortcut (when it was still called Clubhouse), but were soon switched to a free plan without even having to ask. Although this was a nice gesture on their part, they then released a beta of their new product called Write. This beta is only available for paying users, which is understandable, but having been moved to a free plan meant we couldn't access it. This isn't a major issue, but starting our subscription back up would require going through the approval process with our accounting department again so we've just stayed on the free plan without access to Write so far.

Pros

Every org grows out of Github Issues, Trello, and Asana when they realize a) stories need relationships such as blocking/blocked; b) stories need task checklists; c) different groups have different workflows; d) stories are often mini-project briefs and need to read as such. However, once you find yourself in JIRA, which you've been told is the mature platform for mature orgs, you're operating a nuclear submarine, you need 3 sysadmins, nobody can find anything, and you want to throw your computer out the window. SC has the infrastructure but with the user-friendliness of everyday software. Think of how Mixpanel took what Omniture was doing and made it accessible to the everyday marketer. That's what Shortcut does for eng/prod teams. No sysadmin needed, everyone gets it.

Their API is well-documented and incredible. We do tons with Zapier because of how much they expose.

Their CS team is spectacular, inquisitive, friendly, helpful. They want their customers to succeed.

They have a one-click signup link which has made our onboarding process much faster

They have templated stories and checklists which we use across the org for everything from product launches through onboarding/offboarding hires.

Cons

very few dislikes. it's amazing. if i have to force criticism:

- If you work cross-departmentally, avoid multiple workflows, or you'll be having to look at multiple kanban boards daily
- the "dashboard" (home) isn't as useful as it seems like it should be so we all either use iterations or stories view for our daily lens
- shortcut and productboard both boast integration, but it's not great, and i think this is the fault of productboard

but really these criticisms represent like 5% negative compared to 95% enthusiastic positive

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Shortcut

Switched From