Shortcut

Pros

Shortcut is "just right" for our needs, and thinking back about previous companies, would have been perfect in their needs, too. It is much more than a to-do tracker but doesn't overwhelm you with flexibility. My favorite part of this software is that it's story-centric. Epics are available, but they can play a supporting role if needed. Tasks are left to the developer to fill out themselves end up being merely a checklist. This paradigm shifts the focus to deliverables and prevents gamification by closing out menial tasks just to pump up ticket closures.

As a bonus, this standardizes the language of Epics/Stories/Tasks. There is no more endless debate on what should be what. The one thing I've always seen with Jira, especially in young teams, is that the flexibility of the product creates unproductive debate and confusion about terminology.

Cons

This product focuses on product delivery. For more general applications, like issue tracking or process management, it may not be the best for that.

Pros

- Simple to learn and navigate so the team could quickly start using the product after switching- Love the dark mode and the colour coding of different story types i.e bug, feature or chore so it's easy to see things at the high level- Easy to create sprints and I like the summaries provided on the story points

Cons

- You can only write stories in markdown text. Not a big issue since I've become really good at it! But it'd be good if there was a text editor instead- Sometimes when I create a story and I accidentally click out of it, I lose the progress. It'd be good if they had a draft functionality where the stories get created as a draft straight away

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Shortcut

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Shortcut

Pros

This is an adequate task management/tracking software. It has a fantastic Zendesk integration and multiple customizable fields. It also boasts decent search and filtering functions but it isn't particularly user-friendly and filling out all the fields that make it function well takes a great deal of time (hence the title of this review).

Cons

There are no AI/smart suggestions for related epic/team fields so every time you make a new ticket you have to search through them by scratch. They also don't offer a great tag database or tag definitions so you have to create naming conventions separately offline. You also can't use rich text in story descriptions.

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

Pros

Shortcut does a great job allowing us to manage all facets of our product and being multiple teams together for what is most important, client and end user satisfaction. It follows standard agile flow but allows flexibility where engineers and non-engineers can use it alike.
We also utilize their API for templates epics and stories and it is great to work with.
Support team and client success managers have been a pleasure to work with when we’ve had conversations. They always are able to handle a situation or get us in touch with someone who can.
Lastly the product is always evolving and they are very transparent through their website and slack channel of what is coming next to make your life better!

Cons

Some things were less flexible such as naming conventions and required fields on stories/epics, but these are getting worked out over time (for ex projects are not required any more)

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Shortcut

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Shortcut