How would you improve Linear Insights so engineering leaders use it in weekly planning?

Introduction

Linear Insights gives real-time charts on issue data, such as cycle time, throughput, scope and bugs by label, and Dashboards collect those charts in one place. It's available on Business and Enterprise. The prompt says the target behavior: engineering leaders should use it in weekly planning, not only open it for a quarterly review. My hypothesis is that Insights today answers "what happened?" well but doesn't answer "what should we do this week?", which is the question planning meetings exist for. I'll clarify the context, pick the leader segment, map their weekly planning ritual, find where Insights drops out, then propose and prioritize improvements.

Step 1

Clarifying Questions (5 mins)

• Looking at current usage, how often do engineering leaders open Insights, and from where?

Why it matters: Tells us whether the problem is discovery, relevance or trust. Expected answer: Most Business workspaces have created at least one chart, but only about 15% of engineering managers view Insights in a given week, mostly the day before a monthly review. Impact on approach: Focus on fitting into the weekly rhythm rather than adding more chart types.

• Which planning rituals do Linear customers actually run?

Why it matters: Linear's own method favors Cycles (one- to two-week time boxes) and Projects with weekly project updates. Expected answer: Most teams use Cycles. Leaders run a weekly sync covering the current cycle, project health and incoming triage. Impact on approach: Insights should plug into Cycles, Project updates and Triage, which are surfaces leaders already use.

• How do agents change the picture?

Why it matters: With roughly half of issues now created by agents, raw counts like "issues closed" are less meaningful. Expected answer: Leaders are confused by throughput spikes caused by agent-created issues. Impact on approach: Metrics must separate human and agent work.

• What does success mean for the company?

Expected answer: Insights is a reason to buy Business. Weekly use by leaders supports retention and upgrades. Impact on approach: Measure weekly leader usage and decisions made, not chart views.