Linear for Product Teams: Why PMs Are Switching from Jira

The Case for Linear

Linear has built a loyal following among product teams that care about speed. Where Jira gives you a thousand configuration options and lets you build whatever workflow you want, Linear gives you strong defaults and says: "Work this way. It is faster."

For PMs who have spent years configuring Jira boards, custom fields, and automation rules just to get a usable setup, Linear's opinionated approach is a relief. You open it, create a project, and start working. The trade-off is clear: you get speed and simplicity at the cost of customization.

This post covers what makes Linear different, when it works well, and when you should stick with something else.

Linear's Opinionated Workflow

Linear is built around a specific philosophy: software teams should ship fast, in small increments, with minimal process overhead. This philosophy shows up in every design decision.

Issue states are fixed (mostly)

Linear provides a standard set of issue states: Backlog, Todo, In Progress, Done, Canceled. You can rename them or add a few custom states, but you cannot build the 12-step workflow customization that Jira allows. For most teams, five states is the right number. If you need more, it is often a sign that your process has unnecessary handoffs.

Everything is keyboard-first

Linear's keyboard shortcuts are not an afterthought. Power users rarely touch the mouse:

• C to create an issue
• Cmd+K to search anything
• S to set status
• P to set priority
• L to add labels

PMs who learn these shortcuts move through triage and planning sessions noticeably faster than they do in Jira.

Speed is a feature

Linear is fast. Not "fast for a project management tool" but genuinely fast. Pages load instantly, search returns results as you type, and there is no spinner when you switch between views. This sounds minor until you compare it to the multi-second page loads in Jira Cloud. When you check your project tracker 20 times a day, those seconds add up.

Cycles vs Sprints

Linear uses "Cycles" instead of sprints. The concept is similar, with a few differences that matter for PMs.

How cycles work

Cycles are time-boxed periods (typically one or two weeks) where the team commits to a set of issues. At the end of each cycle, incomplete work can automatically roll over to the next cycle or be sent back to the backlog.

The key difference from sprints: cycles are a continuous rhythm, not discrete events. There is no "sprint planning ceremony" in Linear. You move issues into the upcoming cycle as they are ready, and the cycle starts automatically on the configured date.

What PMs should know about cycles

• Auto-scheduling reduces planning overhead. Linear can automatically add issues to upcoming cycles based on priority and estimate. This is useful for maintenance work and bug fixes but less useful for strategic feature work where PMs want deliberate control.
• Cycle reports are clear. At the end of each cycle, Linear generates a report showing completed work, carried-over work, and velocity trends. These reports are clean enough to share directly with stakeholders.
• Cycles are optional. If your team does continuous delivery without time-boxing, you can skip cycles entirely and use projects and milestones instead.

The Triage Process

Linear has a built-in triage workflow that is one of its best features for PMs.

How triage works

New issues created by anyone (support, engineering, stakeholders) land in a Triage inbox. From there, someone (usually the PM or a designated triage lead) reviews each issue and either:

1. Accepts it. Moves it to the backlog with priority, project, and cycle assignment
2. Declines it. Marks it as duplicate, out of scope, or not planned
3. Needs more info. Asks the reporter for clarification

Why PMs should care

Triage solves a common PM problem: the backlog fills up with issues from every direction, and no one is explicitly deciding which ones deserve attention. Linear's triage inbox makes the intake process visible and deliberate.

Set a daily triage routine. Spend 10 minutes reviewing new triage items each morning. Accept what belongs, decline what does not, and ask for clarification on the rest. A clean triage inbox means your backlog reflects real priorities, not a pile of unreviewed requests.

Roadmap Views in Linear

Linear's roadmap capabilities have matured significantly. Here is what works for PMs.

Projects as roadmap items

In Linear, "Projects" are the closest equivalent to roadmap initiatives. Each project has:

• A description (use this for the mini-PRD: problem, goals, scope)
• A target date
• A status (Planned, In Progress, Completed, Canceled)
• A progress bar calculated from child issues
• A lead (typically the PM)

The Projects view

Linear's Projects view shows all active projects with progress indicators, target dates, and team assignments. This is your roadmap. Filter by team, status, or lead to create different views for different audiences.

Milestones for grouping

Use milestones to group related projects into larger themes or quarterly goals. For example, a "Q2 2026" milestone might contain three projects: "Onboarding redesign," "API v2 launch," and "Mobile performance improvements." The milestone view shows aggregate progress across all three.

Roadmap limitations

Linear's roadmap is project-centric, not outcome-centric. There is no native way to track business outcomes or KPIs alongside project delivery. If you need to show "we shipped X and it moved metric Y," you will need to combine Linear data with your analytics tool.

Dependency tracking between projects is minimal. Linear shows project relationships but does not have critical-path analysis or resource leveling. For teams with complex cross-team dependencies, this is a real gap.

When Linear Works Well

Linear is the right choice when your team matches these criteria:

Small to medium teams (5 to 50 engineers)

Linear's simplicity shines with smaller teams. Fewer people means less need for complex permission structures, custom workflows, and administrative overhead. A team of 10 engineers can be productive in Linear within an hour of setup.

Fast-moving product development

If your team ships weekly or more frequently, Linear's speed and lightweight process support that cadence. The tool does not slow you down with mandatory fields, approval workflows, or ceremony.

Teams that value agile principles over Agile ceremony

Linear is built for teams that want to be agile (lowercase) without implementing Agile (uppercase). No burndown charts, no velocity tracking in story points, no sprint retrospective reports. If your team cares more about shipping than measuring process metrics, this is appealing.

Engineering-led cultures

Linear was built by engineers for engineering workflows. If your product team has a strong engineering culture where PMs and engineers collaborate closely (the product trio model works well here), Linear fits naturally.

When Linear Does Not Fit

Be honest about where Linear falls short before committing your team to a migration.

Enterprise teams with compliance requirements

Linear does not have the audit logging, custom permission schemes, and compliance certifications that enterprise organizations require. If you need SOC 2 Type II compliance evidence from your project tracker, Jira is still the safer bet (though Linear has added SOC 2 certification. Check their current compliance page).

Heavy customization needs

If your workflow requires custom fields, calculated fields, conditional transitions, or role-based field visibility, Linear will frustrate you. Its opinionated design means you cannot customize much. The question is whether you need that customization or whether you have just accumulated configuration habits from years of Jira.

Large organizations with multiple product lines

Linear works well for a single product team or a few closely related teams. Organizations with 200+ engineers across multiple product lines need portfolio management, cross-team resource planning, and governance features that Linear does not provide.

Teams already productive in Jira

Migration has a real cost: lost data context, team retraining, integration rebuilds, and the productivity dip during transition. If your team is genuinely productive in Jira (not just habituated to it), the cost of switching may not be worth the benefit.

Migrating from Jira to Linear

If you decide to switch, here is what the migration looks like in practice.

What migrates cleanly

Linear has a Jira importer that handles issues, comments, attachments, and basic field mappings. It works reasonably well for active projects. Set up the import, review the mapping, and run it.

What you will lose

• JQL queries. Linear's filtering is good but less powerful than JQL. Some of your saved queries will not have direct equivalents.
• Custom fields and workflows. These do not carry over. You will need to rethink how you track information that lived in custom fields.
• Automation rules. Jira automations do not migrate. Rebuild what you need using Linear's automation features (which are simpler but cover common cases).
• Historical data. Old sprints, burndown history, and velocity charts stay in Jira. Plan to keep read-only Jira access for a few months after migration.

Migration tips

1. Migrate one team first. Run a pilot with your most enthusiastic team. Work out the kinks before rolling out to the whole organization.
2. Do not replicate Jira in Linear. The worst migration outcome is recreating Jira's complexity in a tool designed for simplicity. Use the migration as an opportunity to simplify your process.
3. Give it six weeks. The first two weeks of any tool migration feel worse than the old tool. Commit to at least six weeks before evaluating whether the switch was worth it.

Making Linear Work for PMs

Linear is a good tool for product teams that value speed, simplicity, and opinionated defaults. It is not the right tool for every team, and that is fine.

The PMs who get the most from Linear:

1. Own the triage inbox. Daily triage keeps the backlog clean and ensures nothing slips through.
2. Use projects as roadmap items. Write clear project descriptions with problem statements and success metrics. This is your roadmap.
3. Skip the ceremony. Linear does not force sprint planning meetings, retrospectives, or estimation. If your team ships better without these rituals, Linear supports that.
4. Combine with a separate roadmap view. Use Linear for execution and a separate tool or deck for strategic roadmap communication to leadership.

The best project management tool is the one your team actually uses consistently. If Linear's speed and simplicity mean your engineers keep their tickets updated and your backlog stays clean, that matters more than any feature comparison chart.