Jason Freed from 37signals introduced a new Basecamp 4 feature called "the lineup," which gives users a timeline view of all active, upcoming, and recently completed projects.
The lineup provides managers and team members an at-a-glance understanding of project durations, current status, and team assignments.
Features for editing project timelines and intuitive navigation were demonstrated.
The lineup is distinguished from a Gantt chart by focusing on project timeframes without dependencies or phase breakdowns.
Action Items
No explicit action items were assigned during this meeting.
Lineup Feature Overview and Demonstration
The lineup provides a timeline view centered on today's date, showing all projects active during the current period as cards.
Each project card displays start and end dates, assigned team members, and visually indicates how much allocated time has elapsed.
Managers can use this view to quickly assess which projects are in play, team involvement, and overall schedule status, minimizing the need for manual status checks.
Future projects and recently completed ones are shown below the active lineup in less prominent styles, extending roughly six weeks backward and forward.
Adjusting project dates is made easy by clicking and changing start or end dates directly within the lineup.
Users can jump directly into any listed project for more detail, and each project page reflects its timeline with a current-date indicator.
Projects can have start and end dates defined at creation or edited afterward, ensuring the lineup remains current.
The lineup is not a Gantt chart—there are no phase breakdowns or dependencies, just a straightforward visualization of what is happening and when.
Decisions
Lineup feature introduced as a solution to lack of project overview — Rationale: Enables a clear, centralized, real-time view of active, upcoming, and past projects for better management visibility.
Open Questions / Follow-Ups
No open questions or follow-ups were explicitly raised during this demonstration.