Product development needs ideas. The fundamental problem with ideas is that they are much easier to generate than to implement. So, how do you select the right ideas for further development?
The idea management process should operate quickly and efficiently. In addition, it should leverage all available information on market and customer needs. This prioritization must also take into account the capabilities and resources of product development.
To support idea management, it is advisable to choose the right tool. Atlassian's Jira Product Discovery (JPD) is a new addition to the Jira product family. It is specifically designed for the management and refinement of product ideas.
A tool optimized for idea management
Product development essentially includes three types of items:
- Products already on the market
- Products and projects under development
- New ideas and opportunities
This is depicted by Eficode's three-portfolio model for product development. The following image presents the three different portfolios. It also shows the various Atlassian tools and add-ons designed to support different stages of the product development process.
Three-portfolio model and Atlassian tools
JPD enhances Jira and Confluence
As one of Atlassian's core products, Jira is used as a solution for managing the development queue or backlog and aids the product development implementation phase.
Using Jira for idea management is possible and, on a small scale, a fine choice. However, as the number of ideas, stakeholders, and products increases, using plain Jira for idea management slows down the management of affairs and decision-making. Collaboration does not work if the tool is used for something it was not designed and optimized for.
Confluence works well as Jira's partner for pre-processing ideas. Collaboration is easier with Confluence. However, the risk is that information becomes too fragmented. Confluence is also not optimized for idea management.
Idea management without the right tool is not efficient
If there is no proper tool for handling and refining ideas, management is not efficient. Good ideas may be left unexecuted, and prioritization doesn’t work. Things are implemented with the wrong requirements and need to be redone multiple times. No company can afford to waste product development resources in this way.
Jira Product Discovery complements businesses that already have an established Atlassian ecosystem in place. It enhances, ensures, and speeds up the management of ideas, helping the right work move forward in the right way. Product development teams can operate at maximum efficiency, and things don't need to be done multiple times.
JPD—a single place for ideas
One of the distinctive features of JPD is its central repository for ideas. Teams can store, access, and manage product ideas and preliminary concepts in one place. This simplifies the evaluation and ensures that no good idea goes unnoticed. Everyone with valuable information and knowledge has the opportunity to participate in the innovation process and contribute to the product's success.
With JPD, it's easier to create and visualize the connection between ideas and the company's strategic goals and OKRs, which guides the selection of the right ideas in the correct order. Product development maintains focus, and resources are allocated to tasks that must be implemented correctly the first time around.
Command center
The “all ideas view” offers a dashboard and command center for innovations. Each idea is listed with a description, comments, priorities, and selectable custom fields.
Prioritizing ideas is intuitive and user-friendly. For prioritization, you can use built-in functions, such as SAFE Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) or BRICE (Business Importance-Reach-Impact-Confidence-Effort). It's also possible to create your own prioritization methods.
Collaboration is easier with a visual tool
With JPD's visualizations, teams and stakeholders can better understand the impacts of decisions and find the best compromises. It's also possible to easily create new types of views to aid decision-making, for example, to ensure that the choices made support the product strategy or how well they fit into the selected OKRs.
User feedback and data are more accessible to all
The 2023 State of DevOps Report emphasized that teams focusing on user-centric development perform, on average, 40% better. Access to user research and data is a prerequisite for future success.
With JPD, teams can collect and incorporate insights from user feedback, needs, and pain points directly into product development. JPD also enables the direct collection of ideas and insights from customers and other stakeholders.
It can also fetch and integrate data from external applications. This enriches the context for each idea and is very handy, for instance, when prioritizing those that are based on real-life usage data or the volume of Jira Service Management support tickets for each feature.
JPD is a noteworthy contender when it comes to closing the last loop of DevOps from production back to ideation.
Seamless integration with other Atlassian tools
Product managers can easily transfer entire concepts to Jira Software for development with the help of JPD. It also integrates seamlessly with Confluence, providing wiki-type content and more detailed information, such as design or requirements.
Ideas can also be displayed along with implementation roadmaps (using Plans, formerly Advanced Roadmaps), thus improving the visibility and transparency of the status of roadmaps and ideas.
Benefits for everyone
Here's a summary of the advantages of JPD:
- A centralized, flexible, and visual place for organizing, refining, and commenting on new ideas
- Better utilization of user feedback for the prioritization and definition of ideas
- Improved collaboration with stakeholders and enhanced prioritization
- Easier systematic testing of ideas
- Increased transparency into the state of product development and future plans
- Improved predictability of product development while maintaining a rapid response capability
Jira Product Discovery improves collaboration between business and technical teams. It is an essential part of “business agility” if the company already uses products from the Atlassian ecosystem. With JPD, innovation becomes a shared goal for the entire organization.
Note: JPD is only available for Atlassian Cloud customers.
Published: Nov 16, 2023
Updated: Feb 27, 2024
