Different missions usually result in different design choices. In this post we’ll go over the major differences between Constructor and GitHub, and why we’ve made the design choices we have.

When people meet Constructor for the first time, they’re often reminded of Trello. That’s not surprising, because Constructor was heavily inspired by Trello’s simplicity, and many of our users view Constructor as a natural evolution of Trello. But despite the resemblance, Constructor differs from Trello in ways large and small, and it’s helpful for teams coming from Trello to understand the major differences. So here they are.

Breaking down dev work into detailed tickets, subtickets, stories, tasks, etc. takes effort. Is it really worth it? There’s a common failure mode where dev teams break down their work too far.

If you’re a dev manager and want to ship software rapidly, a big part of your job is to discover and clear blockers. Otherwise, blocked developers will either move on to other work — work that’s presumably less important — or worse, just twiddle their thumbs. Our new blockers feature is designed to provide a first-class solution.

In early 2020, as our fellow New Yorkers were trying to avoid touching their faces and learning to bump elbows rather than shake hands, we were conducting research interviews and prototyping what was to become Constructor – the lightweight collaboration platform for software teams that we had always wanted but could never find.