Genchi vs Geekbot

Where they overlap: the thumb check

Some standups end with a quick status check: thumbs up, sideways or down on whether the work is on track. That's the one place the two meet. In a Geekbot standup, a check like that is just another answer in the team's report. It isn't combined by project, tracked over time or shared beyond the team's channel. Genchi takes that moment and makes it the whole job. It replaces the thumb check with a confidence vote on a 1–5 scale, the fist of five SAFe teams use at the end of PI Planning, asked of everyone on every project, and turns the answers into a project delivery prediction. SAFe runs the vote openly, once a quarter. Genchi runs it anonymously, on each project's cadence.

What Geekbot does well

• The async standup, done well. Scheduled questions in Slack or Teams, with each person reporting on their own schedule.
• Flexible. Custom questions, plus templates for retros, well-being check-ins and leadership updates, as well as polls and surveys.
• Anonymous when you need it. Paid plans can make a standup's responses anonymous.
• Team dashboards. Participation, happiness trends and blockers for each standup.
• Simple, fair pricing. Free for up to 10 active participants.

Where it differs

• No project status, and no delivery prediction. Geekbot collects what people did and plan, and runs retros, well-being check-ins and surveys. None of that produces a status for a project, let alone a prediction of whether it will land on time, and nothing rolls up across projects. Producing that is Genchi's whole job: a project delivery prediction for every project, from everyone working on it, side by side across the portfolio.
• Within a team vs across teams. A standup is built for one team talking to itself. Genchi is built for what happens between teams. Engineering leaders get a portfolio view of every project, and people doing the work can see how the teams they depend on are doing. A project can span several teams, and one person can work on several projects, so Genchi scores the project, not the team.
• Not systematic across projects. Each standup is configured by its owner, so questions and schedules vary from team to team. Genchi asks the same question, on the same 1–5 scale, for every project.
• No cross-project view. Geekbot's dashboards cover one standup at a time. Genchi's portfolio shows every project's confidence side by side, with the trend and individual votes behind each card.
• Mood, not delivery confidence. Geekbot trends happiness and participation. Genchi trends each project's delivery confidence, vote by vote.
• Writing, not a click. A standup asks for a few written answers each time. A Genchi confidence vote is one click.
• Anonymous by design vs by setting. In Geekbot, anonymity is a per-standup option on paid plans. In Genchi, every vote is anonymous by design, while comments and blockers are attributed so someone can follow up.

Could you use Geekbot to run a cross-team confidence vote, grouped by project?

Sort of, with some work, but it would be a workaround, not a system. You'd add an anonymous confidence question to every team's standup, on a paid plan, then export the answers and regroup them by project yourself each week. Because every standup is set up by its own owner, the question, scale and schedule would drift from team to team, and the signal would never be consistent. Geekbot runs the standup well. Genchi is built for one job, a consistent project delivery prediction across every project.

What it costs

Nearly the same. Geekbot is free for up to 10 active participants, then $3 per participant per month, or $2.50 billed annually, with anonymity on paid plans. Admins who view reports count as participants. Genchi is free for teams of up to 10, then $2.50 per user per month, billed in blocks of 10. At about $250 a month for 100 people, either way, the difference is what you get for it.

Side by side

When to use which

• Use Geekbot to replace the daily standup and run retros, well-being check-ins and team surveys.
• Use Genchi for a standing project delivery prediction across every project, one leaders can read at a glance and that tells them which teams to leave alone.
• Use both. The standup keeps the team in sync day to day. Genchi tells leaders, and the teams that depend on each project, whether the date is still believed.

What Genchi won't do

• Tell you the truth if the whole team is confidently wrong. Genchi measures belief, not reality.
• Work without a clear goal. If people can't say what "done" means, their confidence can't mean much either.
• Work as well without a deadline. Without a date, confidence has less to anchor to, though the trend still shows whether it's rising or falling.
• Tell you why. A falling score shows you where to look. Comments, blockers and a conversation supply the reason.
• Replace your standup. It asks one question, about each project.

Genchi is our product. Geekbot is a well-established standup tool, and the two do different jobs.