# Genchi

> Genchi is a lightweight team sentiment tool that lets engineering leaders see how their teams are really doing — before deadlines slip. A two-second check-in from each team member, aggregated into a current, color-coded view of every project across the organization.

Genchi solves a specific problem: project status reports filter what leadership sees. Teams often know a deadline will slip well before it does, but that knowledge doesn't make it up the chain in time to do anything about it. Genchi removes the filter by collecting a regular, anonymous-but-visible 1-5 confidence vote from every team member, then aggregating those into a real-time portfolio view.

Pricing: free for teams of 1-10. Less than $1 per user per month above that. No credit card to start, 14-day free trial.

## Core concepts

- **Initiative**: The heart of Genchi — a goal, a deadline, and a team. The unit Genchi tracks.
- **Check-in**: A two-second response from each team member, on a 1-5 confidence scale. Answers the question "How confident are you that we'll achieve our goal?" Optional comments and blockers can be added.
- **Anonymity**: Individual votes are visible (you can see *what* people voted), but who voted what stays private — designed to encourage honest signals.
- **Roles**: Owner (creates and manages an initiative, typically a team leader or project manager), Team Member (responds to check-ins), Observer (follows progress, doesn't vote — typically engineering leadership), Admin (manages users, integrations, billing).
- **Cadence**: Configurable per initiative — daily, weekly, or any rhythm that fits the team.

## Etymology

Genchi is named after *genchi genbutsu*, a foundational principle of the Toyota Production System meaning "go (to the place of work) and see for yourself." It emphasizes that leaders should personally observe where work actually happens, rather than relying on filtered reports. Genchi the product does the same thing for modern information teams — managers get a real, current picture from the people actually doing the work, without making them stop to write a report.

## Origin

Genchi was founded by a former Atlassian employee who repeatedly observed a specific pattern: deadlines slipping despite teams knowing the slip was coming. The information existed; the channels for surfacing it didn't work well enough. Conversations with engineering and operations leaders at dozens of other companies confirmed this wasn't an Atlassian-specific issue — it was a pattern everywhere.

## Pages

- [Home](https://www.genchi.com/): Main value proposition and audience-specific entry points (Engineering Leaders, Team Leaders, Team Members).
- [Why Genchi](https://www.genchi.com/why-genchi.html): The categorical argument for Genchi vs. existing alternatives (daily standups, Slack channels, project management tools, status reports, 1:1s, issue trackers). Explains how Genchi differs from each.
- [Product](https://www.genchi.com/product.html): How Genchi works mechanically — the Slack check-in, the team-level initiative view, the portfolio view. Bottom-up walkthrough from individual vote to organization-wide rollup.
- [Integrations](https://www.genchi.com/integrations.html): Slack (the easiest check-in channel), Jira and Asana (initiative import), Atlassian and Google SSO.
- [Getting Started](https://www.genchi.com/getting_started.html): Setup walkthrough (sign up, configure company, create first initiative, connect tools) and day-to-day operational guidance for each role.
- [About](https://www.genchi.com/about.html): Origin story, founding principles (simplicity, velocity, transparency), mission, and etymology.
- [Pricing](https://www.genchi.com/pricing.html): Free tier (teams of 1-10), Standard tier ($0.80/user/month for teams of 11+), Professional tier (coming soon, $1.20/user/month with additional reporting and analytics). FAQ covers trial mechanics, billing tiers, and user definitions.
- [Help Center](https://www.genchi.com/help-center.html): Contact form and links to policies, security documentation, and integration details.
- [Contact](https://www.genchi.com/contact.html): Office address (San Francisco), email contact, and social channels.

## Key positioning

Genchi is *not* a replacement for project management tools (Jira, Asana, Monday). It is a lightweight overlay that captures sentiment from the people doing the work and surfaces it to leadership. Existing tools track tasks; Genchi tracks confidence. The two complement each other — Genchi imports initiative structure from project management tools and adds the sentiment layer that those tools don't capture.

The product is designed for environments where transparency is culturally valued. The anonymity is by design — to reduce friction and encourage honest signals — not to enable secrecy.

## Common questions Genchi answers

- "How are all my teams doing today?" — Portfolio view shows every team's current state at a glance.
- "Which team needs attention?" — Color-coding makes troubled teams immediately visible.
- "Why is this team showing yellow/red?" — Drill into any team to see individual votes, the trend over time, and comments from team members.
- "Is this team about to miss their deadline?" — The trend over time surfaces declining confidence before it becomes a deadline miss.

## What Genchi is not

- Not a real-time chat or collaboration tool (Slack is the channel; Genchi is the signal layer).
- Not a replacement for 1:1s or team standups (those still happen; Genchi gives them better data to start from).
- Not a productivity tracker (it measures confidence, not output).
- Not a surveillance tool (votes are anonymous; the data is about teams, not individuals).