Overview

It is unfortunate that today it can be hard to quickly see if a project is on track, which makes surprise delays and last-minute scrambles all too common. Genchi was created to solve this problem, and we do this by making it easy to get a regular 2-second “check-in” (or “pulse-check”), via Slack or Email from every team member to gauge their sentiment. These individual responses are combined by initiative and visualized, providing a clear picture of how things are really going and highlighting issues as they arise.

This approach is more accurate than conventional reporting because we engage directly with the individuals who are actually doing the work, harnessing the “wisdom of crowds”. It is simpler as we cut through the noise and focus on a single clear signal to answer the most important question - is the project on track right now? And it provides unmatched transparency by showing the color-coded results, at an individual, team and portfolio level. The results are tracked over time—so at a glance, you can see current status, trends, and identify issues across ALL of your teams.

So, if your team wants to ditch those painful status update meetings for a lightweight, modern approach that provides the visibility to drive better project outcomes, contact Genchi today for a free trial.

In summary,
• This approach provides accuracy by directly engaging the individuals who are actually doing the work.
• It provides simplicity by capturing their perspective with a single click in Slack or email, through an automated “check-in” at a cadence of your choosing.
• And it provides transparency by combining and color coding the results which are tracked over time. So, at a glance, you can see trends and identify issues across all of your teams.

Key Features

At the heart of Genchi is the 'Initiative'—our atomic unit for tracking progress. It's simply a combination of: 1) A Goal – what is it that you are trying to accomplish; 2) An optional deadline—when you want it done by; 3) A team of one or more people focused on the task. “Initiatives” can be used to represent Teams, Projects or OKRs.

Initiative owners—typically team leaders or project managers—can easily create initiatives, add or remove members and Observers (who can view details without being asked to vote), edit details, and set the check-in cadence and channels. Initiatives can be chained together using a simple parent/child relationship, to reflect more complex project structures.

• 1-Click Pulse Votes (1-5 scale) for team sentiment capture.
• Automated check-ins via Slack or email at customizable cadences.
• Color-coded visualization of combined team sentiment scores.
• Trend tracking over time to spot issues and patterns.
• Comment and blocker flagging for added context.
• Observer roles for stakeholders to view without participating.
• Integrations with Slack, Jira, and Asana for seamless setup.

Use Cases

• For Team Leaders: Genchi provides a lightweight way to engage your team and stay abreast of the current status and identify issues as they arise.
• For Project Managers: Genchi provides Remote Team Project Management: Genchi helps distributed teams track sentiment in hybrid environments, reducing surprises from siloed updates and fragmented data.
• For Engineering Managers (leaders): Genchi provides a simple, easy mechanism to see the status of a portfolio of teams and projects. Changes in confidence or sentiment are easily spotted early in the process so timely intervention is enabled resulting in better project outcomes.
• For VP of Engineering: It is a lightweight tool to ensure you have the confidence to visualize the current status of all your engineering teams, and intervene accordingly.
• For Remote or distributed team management: Genchi provides the most effective lightweight way to stay current on the status of teams where the members may span multiple timezones without wasting time on the ubiquitous “status check in” calls.
• For high performing teams who are interested in Decentralized Project Management: Genchi provides a mechanism to provide a macro-view of all projects while enabling individual team members to create and prioritize and manage their individual initiatives.
• Agile Sprint Retrospectives: Use pulse voting for quick retrospectives, visualizing confidence trends to identify blockers early in sprints.
• Engineering Team Status Reporting: Engineering managers get real-time visibility into project health without meetings, harnessing crowd wisdom for accurate insights.
• Portfolio-Level Oversight: Stakeholders monitor multiple initiatives at a glance, spotting trends across teams for better resource allocation.
• Integration-Driven Workflows: Seamlessly import from Jira/Asana and check-in via Slack for minimal-effort status updates in existing tools.

Keywords woven in: "project status reporting app", "team sentiment visualization", "pulse voting app", "maximize signal minimize effort", etc.

Benefits

It's frustrating that in today's hybrid world, even top engineering teams can't get a clear real-time view of project progress amid siloed data and fragmented updates, which invariably leads to surprise delays and last-minute scrambles. We created Genchi to address this problem and to make it as SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE to see the current status of ALL of your PROJECTS, whether local or distributed.

We accomplish this via a simple, automated 2-second “Check-In”. This allows us to engage with every team member who is actually doing the work to see how confident they are that their team will accomplish its objective on time. This check-in only requires a single click response, although users can add comments (or flag blockers) to add more context.

Individual votes are anonymized to encourage honest input, giving project managers a crucial signal. But Genchi's real power comes from combining every vote into a color-coded card for each team. As you can see these scores are tracked over time, which makes it easy to spot immediate problems, highlight trends and address them accordingly.

• Accuracy: Harness the "wisdom of crowds" for reliable insights.
• Simplicity: Effortless updates without meetings or emails.
• Transparency: Real-time visibility to avoid surprises.
• Better Outcomes: Early issue detection for resource allocation.

How It Works

Genchi exists to answer the question "How are our teams doing today?" And it does so by providing a lightweight framework to effortlessly capture and display a quasi "NPS Score" analog for all your internal projects.

• Team Sentiment Check-In: At regular selected intervals, for every chosen initiative, each team member is asked: "How confident are you we are going to achieve our goal?” Responses (on a scale of 1-5) are combined and color-coded to show current team confidence, which is tracked over time to highlight the overall sentiment trend. Team members can also add a comment to flag "blockers" or otherwise share more details.
• Harness the "Wisdom of Crowds": Averaging the whole team’s response gives a very accurate picture. Individual responses are anonymized to optimize for accuracy. Performing the check-in regularly keeps the team's status current. This process can be repeated for every team or initiative in the organization.
• Company Overview at a Glance: Project Stakeholders will see a color-coded, quantified status for every participating team or initiative. Over time, trends emerge as project confidence ebbs and flows, allowing for resources to be more effectively deployed. Comments and details of "blockers" are completely curated by Initiative, so easy to view and learn more. Genchi provides the framework to measure progress so the whole company can get better at setting and achieving goals.

Integrations

Slack is the most effective channel to use for the check-in and administrators manage the connection to the relevant workspace. One-way integrations are also available with Jira and Asana to make it easy to download existing project or user details.

• Slack Integration: Capture team sentiment directly via Slack with automated prompts.
• Jira Integration: Secure import of projects, epics, issues, and users for sentiment tracking.
• Atlassian ID Integration: Secure sign-in and account creation using Atlassian accounts.

Pricing Overview

Genchi offers flexible pricing: Free for teams of 1-10 users (upgrade when ready). Standard plan at $0.89 per user per month ($19.99 for 25 users) for teams of 10+, with a 14-day free trial. Professional plan coming soon at $1.20 per user per month ($29.99 for 25 users) with additional reporting and analytics.

Security & Compliance

Data is encrypted at rest with AES-256-CBC. Genchi complies with CCPA, with weekly Personal Data Reports and no selling of data. See our Privacy Policy for details on subprocessors like AWS and Stripe.

Customer Testimonials

• "Finally a tool to give me the insight I need without having to keep bugging the team for updates." – Christopher Wilson, CTO, Red Raven.
• "Genchi just works for us. I get the visibility I need without having to constantly reach out and ask." – Nicole Wallace, CEO, Three Arrows.
• "Genchi was super easy to set-up and intuitive to use." – Raymond Contreras, Engineering Manager, Viewing Glass.

FAQ

• Do you need to enter credit card details to trial Genchi? No – all users can try the system for 14 days.
• Do we have to sign a 1-year contract? No – all customers are billed month-by-month.
• How is a user defined? A user is an active account in Genchi visible in your user management screen.
• How to set up? Register with company email, create Initiatives, invite teams, connect integrations like Slack.

What Does “Genchi” Mean?

"Genchi Genbutsu" from the Toyota Production System (Taiichi Ohno) - a Japanese principle meaning "Go (to the place of work) and see for yourself." For Toyota this meant for managers to not base their decision on the reports that were produced but to actually go to the factory and see what was happening in person (where they could see hold ups in the production line or damaged equipment personally). Genchi applies this principle to the distributed technical work, providing team leaders with an easy way to see what is actually happening in their teams.

Get Started with Genchi

So, if you’re leading a team that deserves better visibility, sign up for your free Genchi trial today. This will eliminate project surprises, unlock real transparency, and deliver better project outcomes.

Sign Up Today