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View our projects in Linear here

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Linear is our project management tool that we use across the team to track and manage work efficiently. It helps us stay aligned on projects, streamline communication, and maintain visibility for ongoing initiatives.

Transparency is one of our core values, and Linear plays a key role in supporting that. By keeping all project details, discussions, and updates in one place, we ensure that anyone on the team can easily see what’s in progress, what’s coming up, and how decisions are being made. This openness helps us collaborate better, share knowledge, and work asynchronously across time zones.

This guide outlines how we use Linear at Buffer, including best practices for structuring projects, writing project specs, managing issues, and keeping work organized. The goal is to ensure a consistent and effective workflow while reinforcing our commitment to transparency, clarity, and seamless collaboration.

Table of contents:

Getting started with Linear

• Highly recommended if you’re new to Linear! Watch this 101 video from Kateryna:

https://www.loom.com/share/d43bf5b4d5674c7ba7cb025462106e9e?sid=dbf958d4-f065-487e-b5ce-3114bcb447fb

• Review Linear’s official resources
  • Linear method: This is a resource from the Linear team which outlines the philosophy behind Linear
  • Linear docs: Check out Linear’s documentation to get an overview of Linear's features, integrations, and how to use them. There is a Getting Started Guide and all of the docs have many great examples and tips!
• Join your team’s workspace in Linear (see Teams section below)

A quick breakdown of how work is structured in Linear

• **Initiatives:** Broad, high-level efforts that align with company goals. Some (not all) projects roll up into an initiative.
• **Projects:** Contain specific workstreams and objectives within an initiative. Each project has a Project Lead and a spec that outlines the scope and goals.
• **Milestones:** Key stages of progress within a project (e.g., Internal → Alpha → Beta → Launch → Post-launch).
• **Issues:** Individual tasks or units of work that contribute to a project. These are assigned, tracked, and updated as work progresses.

Visualizing the hierarchy

Initiative (optional)