LineReady / Guides / Shift lineup
How to build a shift lineup (deployment chart) for a restaurant
A shift lineup, also called a deployment chart, a setup sheet, or a positioning chart, is the answer to one question: who is standing where for this shift. It maps every scheduled person to a station before the rush, so nobody is negotiating positions while a line forms. The schedule says who's working; the lineup says what they're doing.
Lineup vs. schedule: they are not the same document
The schedule is written a week out and answers "who is in the building from 2 to 10." The lineup is written the day of, sometimes an hour before, and answers "who runs the window, who bags, who's on fries." Stores that skip the lineup are letting seniority and habit make the assignment, which is how your fastest order-taker ends up washing dishes on a Saturday.
Building the lineup in five steps
The working method
- Start from the stations, not the people. List every position that must be covered for this volume: cockpit, window, bagging, front counter, dining room, kitchen line.
- Place your anchors first. The two or three positions where a weak performer sinks the shift get your strongest people, every time.
- Fill by strength, not by preference. Ratings beat memory. If you track station ratings per person, sort by them; if you don't, you're guessing.
- Plan the breaks into the chart. A lineup that collapses when the first break starts wasn't a lineup, it was a photo of the first hour.
- Publish before anyone clocks in. The lineup only works if the crew sees it before they're standing in the huddle.
Why the whiteboard and group-chat versions decay
Most stores run the lineup on a whiteboard photo pushed into a group chat. It works until it doesn't: the photo is from yesterday, the person it mattered to never opened the thread, and by mid-shift the board and reality have quietly diverged. There's also no history: when you want to know who ran the window during last Friday's rush, the answer is in nobody's pocket.
Rotate on purpose
A lineup tool also exposes your training gaps. If the same name has been on the same station for three weeks, you don't have a strong performer; you have a single point of failure. Use slow dayparts to put second-string people on anchor stations while the cost of a mistake is low.
Building your lineup in LineReady
LineReady is built around the lineup; it's the first screen your leaders see. Drag names onto stations, and the board is on every crew phone the moment you publish.
- Your stations, your labels, your order, with FOH and BOH sides
- Station ratings per team member, so assignments follow strength
- Publish once; everyone sees their spot before they clock in
- Every past lineup stays on record; last Friday's board is one tap away