Funnel vs Backlog

[Susan Congiu]

What is the best recommended board setup to create a FUNNEL prior to business/product owner moving over to the backlog ?

We would like to keep the funnel separate to do feasibility prior to putting (or moving) to backlog to prioritize to keep the backlog count low.

Is the best approach to make a "Funnel Board" or to create a "Funnel Project" and move to the project where the backlog is? 
I'm trying to keep it simple so minimal moving project to project would be a pro but if I have a Funnel board, I want to keep separation from the backlog as stories wouldn't be in sprint regardless.

Appreciate any feedback of what has worked with an optimal flow.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

I'm going to pick at one part of your question because I think it is the most important part, as you try to apply this in Jira (and keeps the answer quite short)

>Is the best approach to make a "Funnel Board" or to create a "Funnel Project" and move to the project where the backlog is? 

Never try to set up a process that includes moving issues between projects.  Jira is built to keep your issues in one place, and moving them is not easy or clean.  It should be limited to housekeeping and reorganisation, never part of a standard process.

So, given that, your "make a Funnel board" idea is exactly the right answer.  And you should expand on it!

There's a couple of important points that underpin me saying that:

• A board is a view of a set of issues, not a container.
• A backlog is actually part of a board.  They're a very different view, but they work in lockstep with the board, and are defined by the same filter.

Taking the most simple (but working well) setup here, you might define a filter for "Project = XYZ".  You then have your issue creators all creating issues in there, and a basic workflow of to-do -> in-progress -> done (I know, that is oversimplified, but I'm going to talk with it because the complexities of your status are not too relevant here)

You then probably want to have some form of triage or new-issue-analysis (the funnel).  Keeping the workflow simple, I'd add another status of "funnel" or "to analyse" at the start of the workflow, so that new issues start in a status that clearly states "do not bring this into a sprint or on to a developer kanban board until someone has looked at it and decided it is worth attention"

I have now walked us into a workflow that is something like this:

New -> Being analysed -> Approved for development -> In progress -> Done

So I would then define (at least) two boards for this.

• Board 1 would be called something like "Funnel" and have columns mapped as "New", "Being analysed" and a third one of "done" which includes the other three status in the workflow.  I suspect I would use a Kanban board for it - I doubt your analysts and product managers would be working in sprints to decide what is and is not going to get to the developers!
  
• Board 2 would be the development board, and would have columns to-do (approved for development) -> In progress -> Done.  Scrum or Kanban, whatever your team wants to work on, but the main thing about this board's backlog is that it would only show your team stuff that the analysts/PMs have approved for development.

[Susan Congiu]

Thank you Nic for your thought-provoking response!

Sounds like a "Funnel" Board and a "Dev Board" is the way to go. 

Outside of boards,  when in the "Backlog View" while looking at Sprints and Backlog- I was thinking of a way to separate the funnel product backlog vs sprint backlog (as there is just 'one backlog' and if not in a sprint - all would show simply in 'backlog'.  Perhaps filtering even in the Backlog view, would be an option.

An alternative too was to create a "Funnel" Epic to contain everything in the same project and keep everything that is NEW, Discovery  (high level), and Awaiting Review. What do you or the community think about that or have others done the same with success or challenges?

Our process then once 'approved' (after awaiting review) would then to go to the Dev Team to do a lower level Discovery (In Progress status), then point and plan per agreed Definition of Done.

This is another way where we separate out the business/BA high level discovery (before approval to scope/and define acceptance criteria) and then once approve, the dev team can solution in their lower level discovery the best design options that meet the business needs as a partnership.  

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

No, as I said earlier, backlogs are part of a board.

If you have two boards, you have two backlogs.  The funnel and development backlogs are separate, and will list different issues.

See the last two bullet points in my answer.