Ideation Alternatives

[Stephanie Davis]

We've been using the Ideation module of Jira Align for about a year now and have found it quite clunky.  Atlassian doesn't seem to have any plans to improve it.  Does anyone have experience using JIra Product Discovery with a Jira Align / Jira Software setup?

[Steve Sauser]

@Stephanie Davis Thank you for your question!  

Hopefully you have Advisory Services engaged in your account, assuming you do I would suggest reaching out to your Strategic Engagement Manager to request a demo.  

The ideal pattern would be to leverage a combination of Jira Service Management to intake the initial ideas as this allows you to leverage the "One Front Door" concept where anyone in your organization (without adding another license, assuming they have a Jira license) can submit an idea.  

• This idea would then sit in a queue in JSM for your agents to evaluate. 
• Typically we would suggest using just a couple of evaluations in JSM to decide if it should be accepted as an idea. 
  • Does this idea meet our Mission/Vision/Values?  This could be different Portfolio by Portfolio.
    • If yes, then go to the next item. 
    • If no, put the idea in a "won't do" type bucket of work as a final status and let JSM update the requestor. 
  • Can we see ourselves acting upon this idea in the next 12-18 months? (timeframe could be different depending upon the company). 
    • If yes, send the item into Jira Product Discovery for Lean Business Case and other evaluations. 
    • If no, put the idea in a "won't do" type bucket.  

In Jira Product Discovery more detailed work would begin to evaluate the idea more deeply.  

• Various custom fields can be created to use different evaluation methods (WSJF, RICE, etc...)
• Lean Business Case is created and populated by various actors from the Portfolio. 
• Workflows established can flow to ensure each step of the process is met before the idea is presented to a body of individuals who would approve, determine to wait X amount of time, or decline the idea.  
• APIs can be triggered inside the workflow (as an example reaching "Approved") to create the work item in Jira Align. 
  • Custom fields from the Lean Business Case can be mapped systemically into the Epic Benefits and Intake tabs where you can create custom forms for this data.  
• Now the work item is ready for work refinement/breakdown in the given timeboxes (PI/QI) and worked through existing processes.  

There are obviously a lot of details to work through, but these patterns provide a broader and more customizable process with systemic support for the concepts of evaluating new ideas before starting work upon them.  

Highly suggest working with your Strategic Engagement Manager to have a more indepth conversation around this topic. 

[Stephanie Davis]

If JSM were the front door, how would this allow for voting up of existing ideas?  I thought that happens in Jira Product Discovery.

[Steve Sauser]

JSM has the concept of "one front door" available to you, which means anyone in the org can submit an idea without an additional license.  

You would not want to vote here because you have not even evaluated the idea to see if it fits into your broad goals or timelines. 

• Goals: 
  • A software company has a team member come up with a new mousetrap (hardware) and while it looks AWESOME as an idea the company does not produce hardware. 
    • No matter how many votes this receives, it is not within the boundaries of the company.  
• Timelines:
  • Same software company has a team member come up with an idea for a whole new development language, it looks promising, but it also looks like it would be 10 years of development.  
    • Likely even if this received thousands of votes, the timeline is not something that would be considered.  

Once the Product/Portfolio representatives have looked at the suggestions for these 2 evaluations then it moves over to JPD for further refinement.  Some level of refinement should be done before seeking voting purposes and this can be accomplished in a number of ways.  

This is where your Strategic Engagement Manager and Advisory Services partners can dig deeper into all the wants/desires your company have in this space and provide options to help you build a broader System of Work.