Linear is always a lagging indicator

(remark.ing)

14 points | by koch 11 hours ago ago

7 comments

  • shaewest 10 hours ago ago

    I think the issue with more fine grained task tracking, is that suddenly you're providing information to higher ups that might not directly understand why 'planning' takes so long, or testing. Right now they're given a 'picked up till code review till test till deploy', and that's already a metric they try to optimize, and if we add in 'planning, then talking to customers, then talking to coworkers on the issue' we'll start seeing that get hyperoptimized which will hurt more than help, imo.

    • gumby 9 hours ago ago

      Yeah. They want and need the “executive summary” level of resolution and don’t have time to immerse themselves sliver of high resolution data.

  • _boffin_ 10 hours ago ago

    > any issue tracking tool that is used instead as a visibility tool by higher-ups to get a view into what their organization is doing is also lagging

    I completely agree! There's so much additional information strewn throughout the organization that allows for a much more vibrant picture of what's going on

  • QuercusMax 10 hours ago ago

    This article is incomprehensible. I picked up from context that "linear" is some kind of bugtracker, but aside from that I don't know what the author is trying to say.

    • shaewest 10 hours ago ago

      Linear is a 'work tracker' rather than bug tracker, and they're saying it's not a good enough indicator of tracking where things are at in the work cycle as there's too much abstraction

  • rrvsh 10 hours ago ago

    Yep my old CEO drank the absolute Linear koolaid because he realized it gave him granular visibility into everything everyone was doing - started getting mandates to put in meaningless deadlines etc. right before I left

  • esafak 10 hours ago ago

    That depends on how you use it. Linear is positioning itself as the place where work starts; you write the ticket, and have Linear implement it: https://linear.app/agents

    And the ticket tracker is the perfect place to discuss things before building them because it has the context of all the work that preceded it.