The Linear method: Opinionated software

The Linear team runs on strong opinions that might seem counterintuitive to outsiders. Here’s how those principles show up in both the product and their processes.

Well-designed interfaces don’t just happen. Great product experiences are the result of great people, tools, and of course, processes. These processes are hard to get right. While some rallying cries reach the notoriety of Meta’s “Move fast and break things,” others run the risk of simply being the work about the work. But there’s a reason why product development frameworks are so prevalent: How we build is just as important as what we build.

At Figma, we’re always hearing from teams about new ways to build for more streamlined workflows, faster iterations, and ultimately better products. It’s in this spirit that we’re inviting product leaders from a range of teams to unpack the specific terms, principles, and strongly held beliefs that govern their work. While every team is different, hopefully there’s something here for you to adapt, remix, or even push against for your own workflows. For the first installment in our series, we sat down with the Linear team who put forth a series of principles to guide their own work. Here, co-founder Jori Lallo and Chief Operating Officer Cristina Cordova share why opinionated software is core to Linear’s methodology, and how other teams can adopt it.

What is opinionated software?

Linear’s founding team—including Jori, Karri Saarinen , and Tuomas Artman —had previous work experience spanning high-growth companies like Airbnb and Coinbase. Frustrated with legacy tools that siloed workflows, they set out to create a collaborative issue tracking and project management experience that more closely mirrored how startups work. “We’ve always been interested in how tools can enable us to do our jobs better,” says Jori.

At its core, opinionated software is software that’s purpose-built for specific use cases. At Linear, that use case is helping teams build better products. Unlike a general purpose tool to be adopted across many disciplines or workflows, it guides you toward a default process. “We design it so that there’s one really good way of doing things,” says Jori. “Flexible software lets everyone invent their own workflows, which eventually creates chaos as teams scale.”

What does it look like in practice?

Read more about how Linear’s team puts opinionated software into practice through atom-level opinions and product debt on our blog, Shortcut. Stay tuned for the next installment in our series about how teams build products and the principles and processes that guide their work.