The
way
A brief guide to why we built Shortcut and how it empowers your team to excel.
Software teams face a persistent challenge: delivering rapidly while maintaining high quality standards and keeping their stakeholders informed of their progress. The Shortcut Way addresses this by providing a streamlined framework for how teams capture, execute, and track their development efforts.
This approach isn’t about adding process, it’s about removing friction. By establishing clear patterns for breaking down work and managing flow, teams can minimize overhead and focus on what really matters: shipping valuable features consistently and predictably.
The practices outlined here have emerged from real-world experience across thousands of engineering teams. They represent a pragmatic balance between structure and flexibility, enabling teams to maintain momentum without sacrificing visibility or quality.
Break down your work into actionable pieces
Software development is complex, but its execution doesn’t have to be. Breaking down work effectively is both an art and a science.
Stories represent a shippable scope of customer value.
- Capture the problem that needs solving, and specify requirements with a user story and acceptance criteria
- Features, Bugs, and Chores are all types of Stories
- Stories often have multiple implementation steps, which can be captured with Sub-tasks
Sub-tasks capture the implementation steps of Stories.
- Aim to break down the Story scope into individual Sub-tasks that can be completed in a few days
- Sub-tasks should enable parallel work when possible and minimize dependencies that could create bottlenecks and slow down velocity
Epics are groups of related Stories that deliver a larger outcome.
- Keep Epics scoped to deliver value with a timeframe (a week, month, quarter)
- Include clear success criteria and measurable objectives to learn from what you ship
- Instead of waiting for all Stories in an Epic to be complete before shipping, Stories in an Epic can, and should, ship when completed to put changes in front of users quickly
Ultimately, you want to separate business value from the implementation work. Stories and Epics should capture “what” we want to accomplish, where Sub-tasks should capture “how” it is accomplished.
Let your teams work the way they want to work
Your team should work the way that suits you best, whether you're running Scrum, practicing Shape Up, or flowing with Kanban.
Workflows can be tailored to your team – use one or more workflows to support your unique process.
Iterations let your team work in sprints/cycles. Automate this flow, so your next cycle is created for you and incomplete Stories rollover to the next.
Estimates allow engineers to add number values based on perceived effort or time spent on a Story or Sub-task. We know points aren’t for everyone, in that case you can just turn them off!
Work In Progress Limits control the flow of work by setting limits on the number of Stories in a workflow state – fantastic for continuous flow style methodologies.
This isn't just about supporting different methodologies, it's about embracing how modern builders work.
As your team needs grow or change, adapt your toolset in Shortcut by toggling these features on/off.
Share progress outwards
As the work (Stories and Epics) move through your team workflows, you’ll want to keep stakeholders informed of how different scopes are progressing.
Roadmaps can be used to create a prioritized list of Epics that are intended to get you to your goals. Product, Design, and Engineering leads should all be involved to weigh the impact and effort of an Epic – don’t overcomplicate it, simple RICE scoring works!
Share status on a weekly cadence to keep stakeholders in the loop. Progress will update as Stories are completed, and team or project leads should update the Health to share more details on how the work is going with stakeholders.
Use both asynchronous and synchronous practices to keep everyone informed: Set reminders to keep Health and Target Dates up-to-date for asynchronous review, and host a synchronous Status Share meeting on a regular cadence as a venue for questions and conversations with stakeholders.
Tie it back to business goals
It’s critical that your teams understand the “why” behind their work, and what business impact is expected.
Outline Objectives and Key Results, and then prioritize the Roadmap with work that will move you toward these OKR goals. Connect those Epics to the Objectives and Key Results they seek to impact.
As work is released to users, the feedback loop begins. Track impact with Key Results, and use Objective Health updates to share additional insights and context.
As your team needs grow or change, adapt your toolset in Shortcut by toggling these features on/off.
Plan out what's next
Continuous releases generate your feedback loop.
Create a direct pipeline from your user feedback to the roadmap. Your priorities will shift and shuffle as impact and feedback is analyzed. Remember, a Roadmap is meant to change – this means you’re using the voice of the customer to inform the roadmap!
It’s everyone’s job to see users succeed – it’s critical that all Product, Design, and Engineering leads are engaged in, and accountable for, planning the roadmap.
TL;DR
The Shortcut Way empowers your team to focus on what matters most: building exceptional products and delivering real value to your customers. By simplifying how you plan, execute, and communicate work, you’ll enable your team to move faster, stay aligned, and maintain a high standard of quality.
This approach clears the path for innovation, strengthens collaboration, and helps your team achieve meaningful progress every step of the way.
