How to get started with Jira Product Discovery Webinar - recording + Q&A
Hi all!
Thank you to everyone registered and joined our webinar this week on how to get started with Jira Product Discovery. We were overwhelmed with the number of people who attended and all of the wonderful questions (all 1200+ !) you asked.
If we didn’t get to your question in the webinar, we have tried to answer it below. If you don't see your question (ctrl+f), please ask in the comments below and we'll get to it asap!
Here's a link to the on-demand recording: https://www.atlassian.com/webinars/software/get-started-jira-product-discovery
General product questions
Start here. This is a great starting point for all things Jira Product Discovery.
Is Jira Product Discovery useful for teams other than product teams or product managers?
Yes! JPD can be used with any team or by any role that needs prioritization and roadmapping, including go-to-market, engineering, scrum masters, and more.
Can you create views across multiple projects to show aggregated product roadmaps or a centralized view of multiple Jira Product Discovery projects?
Currently you cannot create views with ideas from multiple projects, but it’s on the roadmap.
Can you organize ideas for multiple products in a single project, or should each product team have their own project?
Jira Product Discovery was designed to work best when used by individual teams using the Spotify squad model. But it's possible to use a single project to share between teams/products, especially if there's a high level of collaboration required between teams. Demo: using a single project for multiple products and teams
Are there plans to add a hierarchy structure to show parent and child relationships (i.e. when working with opportunity solution trees)?
This is not yet available, but on our roadmap! In the meantime you can use the flexible fields and views system to do this. Here is an example: Demo: grouping solutions by opportunities. And here's a recording for how to reproduce this configuration.
Can you connect an insight to multiple ideas?
Yes, the easiest way to do that is to create an insight in an idea, then copy it to other ideas (in the idea's insights tab, select the insight via the checkbox, click copy)
How should we think about the “size” of an idea? Is it similar to epics in Jira Software?
Ideas can be defined however your team decides! We find that customers get the best results when they add larger initiatives to Jira Product Discovery.
Can you require templates for idea creation so we have a uniform way of collecting information?
When creators and contributors submit ideas, you can make certain fields mandatory via an idea creation form in the project settings, or pre-select a template to embed in the description.
Do you have a plan to have "company-managed" Discovery projects?
No, company-managed projects are not on the roadmap. However we are looking at options so you can share configuration between projects, e.g. fields or view
Do all insights have to be attached to an idea, or is it possible to create insights without ideas?
Currently, insights must be connected to an idea to exist in Jira Product Discovery. We do have plans to improve the insights management experience, but for now, you can create a generic idea which would be used as your “Insight inbox”.
Can you create a form to gather ideas from internal teams?
There are a few options you can use to do that with the product today:
- Set up a Jira Service Management queue to receive feedback from customers and internal teams
- Set up a dedicated Slack channel #product-feedback to receive feedback from internal teams (also works with Teams)
- Share views with other teams and gather their feedback using fields and votes to receive feedback from internal teams. We've also recently added the option for contributors to create ideas in the project directly
Is it possible to import an existing Idea with the connected Insights?
You can import ideas via CSV. Learn more here. To add insights, you would need to use our public API, instructions here. We will be improving this process in time!
When changes are made to an idea, will watchers be notified?
Yes, and you can customize these notifications.
Does Jira Product Discovery have sub-tasks attached to an idea (ie “validation” or “create prototype”)?
No, there is no hierarchy at the moment in Jira Product Discovery. You can learn how to manage ideas in a project here.
Can you set dependencies between ideas (i.e. X must be completed before Y can be done)?
Yes, similar to linking issues in Jira Software, you can link ideas by clicking into an idea > selecting the link icon in the top left > select whether an idea is “blocked by”, “aligns to”, “is action for”, etc.
Can you add weight to certain insights or understand impact of an idea based on insights (ie if they are positive or negative)?
Yes, you can add an impact score and labels to insights, and you can use these scores as a field to compare your ideas. See demo here or learn more about insights.
Can you differentiate which ideas have been created by Creators vs Contributors?
Yes, with some configuration, you can set a field value when a contributor creates an idea. See the video at the bottom of this post.
Can you merge ideas? Once ideas are merged, do they retain the comments and insights from each individual idea?
Yes, when you merge an idea, you can select whether you’d like your insights, attachments, or linked delivery tickets to appear in the new merged idea.
What options are available for users to react to or engage with ideas?
Think of Jira Product Discovery as a canvas for product conversations. It's really up to you how you want users to engage. You can choose to let them comment, add insight, set field values (e.g. rank something on a 1-5 scale, tag a customer via a select field"), add votes or reactions, etc.
Can I capture insights that come in via email or forward them to an email address to get auto-added to our project?
Currently, the best way to capture insights via email is to use the Chrome extension to highlight parts of the email you wish to add as an insight.
Do ideas have shareable links to share with contributors?
Yes, similar to Jira Software issues and epics, when you open up an idea, hover next to the idea key in the top left corner and a link icon will appear to copy the link.
Is there a way to export impact assessments, ideas, roadmap views, timeline views, etc. into a PDF to share with stakeholders?
Yes you can export as a PNG in the top right corner or easily share with a link.
Soon we will have a new stakeholder role, where you can share your views externally with anyone (as long as they have a free Atlassian license).
What type of reports are available in Jira Product Discovery?
Currently, there is no native reporting available in Jira Product Discovery, however if you are a Cloud enterprise customer, you can build reports on Jira Product Discovery data using Atlassian Analytics.
You can also use the following APIs to create reports showing how many ideas there are, who's working on them, what status they're in, how long they've been in the project, etc:
-
Jira Product Discovery ideas are Jira issues, so you can query them using the Jira Cloud Platform REST API
-
This will return all fields except dynamic fields (e.g. formula fields).
-
But things like status, multi-select/select, number, date fields, etc. will just work
-
Do you support other browser extensions aside from Chrome?
Currently, we support the Google Chrome extension and Edge to add insights to your ideas.
Managing fields
Can I use my own formula to calculate specific fields?
Yes, you can create a "Custom Formula" field. Learn more here.
How is the impact score field calculated? When I change the impact/effort score of one idea, it impacts the impact/effort score of another idea.
The impact score is calculated dynamically relative to the values of other fields. You can create your own formulas based on how you want to factor in impact and effort.
Is it possible to apply resource constraints to the prioritized list of ideas so that we know how much we can accomplish in a given amount of time?
You can create a custom field, like a sliding scale, to give a loose idea of constraints or use the Effort field. You can also create a custom formula with a negative input to represent a constraint. Read more about custom formulas.
Will multi-line fields, or fields with more than 255 characters be supported?
It's not currently supported but will be on our roadmap. In the meantime, we’ve seen teams use description templates (you can create your own) to describe ideas in depth.
Can we add a description for how to use certain fields and criteria? e.g. “effort” has a scale 1-5, but what does 1 dot mean, 2 dots, etc.
Yes you can write a description in the editable box as per screenshot and you could link to a Confluence page if you wanted to go into more detail.
Managing views
Where can I find these view types: List, matrix, board etc?
Once you are in a product discovery project, you will see these options on the left hand side. Keep in mind they may have different names as they are custom views. For example your List view might be called ‘All ideas’ as per the screenshot here. You can create your own views by clicking "Create a view" from this left sidebar
How do I get my ideas to appear in a timeline view? How do we add dates to ideas to display in the timeline view?
To add ideas to the timeline view, click on the blue "+" button on the bottom right of the view, select ideas, and drag them onto the timeline for the dates that you wish. You set the timeline using the date field located directly under the view title.
Can you set a timeline view to show ideas across weeks?
Currently the timeline view can be shown by months or quarters. We'll be making improvements here soon, stay tuned!
In the timeline views, can ideas appear as multiple separate chunks (i.e. working on it in March - April and Sept - Nov) or only as one continuous time-box?
Ideas can only appear as one continuous time-box. For this reason some teams create different ideas for different stages (e.g. v1, v2).
Can you add milestones to the timeline view?
No, currently you can’t add milestones to the timeline view.
Where do the swimlanes in the timeline view come from?
Swimlanes in the timeline view are applied using the “Group by” option above the timeline. You can select to group by goals, buckets, teams, or any other field you wish.
How can we create a roadmap with different time horizons?
Here are 2 options, the second one is our favorite.
Can you change the x and y axis in the matrix view?
Yes, the axes are completely customizable, and you can change them to whatever field you like. It is also possible to switch the x and y axis and reverse their order.
When using the board view, should columns show progress of moving ideas to “done” (ie To-do, In progress, Done)?
You can structure a board view this way, with the columns representing statuses.
The best way to use a board is as a high-level roadmap of ideas your team is prioritizing, using columns like Now, Next, Someday. This focuses your conversations on what your prioritizing and why, vs committing to a when. Tracking delivery of the ideas you’ve committed to is better done in Jira Software, Jira Work Management, or Trello. You can also add a “status” field to group, filter, and sort ideas.
Can we add or customize columns in the board view (e.g. a parking lot) ?
Yes you can customise almost anything in Jira Product Discovery. It is all based on the fields that you use or create. You might have a roadmap field for example with Now/Next/Later. As long as you are a creator, you can easily add a ‘parking lot’ to the roadmap.
Roles & Sharing
General guidance on setting Jira Product Discovery up for your users including roles, billing, and sharing:
Read this if you're a site administrator and just added JPD Free or Standard
The different types of users: Creators, contributors, and stakeholders
Adding contributors and creators to a JPD project
Do contributors count towards a Jira Product Discovery license? Do they need to have a Jira license to access Jira Product Discovery?
Contributors are unlimited and are not billed towards your Jira Product Discovery license. Contributors only need an Atlassian account, not access to Jira, to view projects in Jira Product Discovery. Learn more here.
Is there a way to collect ideas from customers and/or allow them vote for ideas?
Currently, customers are not able to submit ideas or vote/comment on ideas. Soon we’ll introduce the "Stakeholder" role to support this. Learn more here.
Is it possible to share a view with internal teams who do not have a Jira license?
For internal teams who may not have access to Jira, use the Contributors role, which is free and doesn’t require any Jira license but does require an Atlassian account and access to your site where Jira Product Discovery is located. Learn more here.
Is it possible to manage roles and permissions for specific views or ideas? E.g. view-only access for contributors/stakeholders without accessing the entire project?
Currently, you are not able to do this on a views level. On the views level, you can disable autosave to prevent users from making universal changes to the fields in that view. Any changes they make will only be saved in the local view.
Soon we’ll release a stakeholder role which allows users to only see a specific view, and not your entire project.
Can you restrict permissions of contributors? ie they can only add insights
Contributors can always add insights, comments, or react with emojis or votes. You can modify permissions to allow or prevent a contributor to create ideas.
Can I designate a subset of users to be “creators”? I have a user base of [200] on our Jira account, but don’t want all of them to be creators.
Yes, Jira Product Discovery is a different product than Jira Software, meaning you can choose how many of your Jira users are contributors (for free) vs. creators. Learn more here.
Do users need a Jira Product Discovery license to create an idea? We want the whole organization to be able to create them and then have the product managers review and manage them.
Users do not need a Jira Product Discovery license to create ideas. Contributors, i.e. non-licensed users, can create ideas, which creators, i.e. licensed users, can then review and manage. Read more about role types here.
Billing & Licensing
Will Jira Product Discovery be available on-premise for Data Center?
Jira Product Discovery is a Cloud-only product. There are no plans to come to Data Center in the near future.
As an existing Jira Software customer, does it cost to add a Jira Product Discovery license? What if we have the Enterprise plan?
Yes, Jira Product Discovery currently offers two pricing plans:
-
Free plan: $0 monthly/creator up to 3 creators (all contributors free)
-
Standard plan: $10 monthly/creator for > 3 creators (all contributors free)
Compare the details of each plan. It is not included as part of the Enterprise plan.
How do I know if Jira Product Discovery is part of my Jira site? If not, how do I get started?
If you’re an admin, you can visit admin.atlassian.com to view which products are part of your Cloud site, and add products in the “Products” tab.
End users can see if Jira Product Discovery is on their site in start.atlassian.com. If you don’t see the Jira Product Discovery logo, you can start a site here.
Are creators counted per project or per site?
Creators are counted per site of Jira Product Discovery. Each site can have multiple projects.
What is the difference between product and project roles?
- Product role: determines general access to the product ie "is the user a Creator or a Contributor in this site?"
- Project role: defines a list of permissions in a project. When users are given a project role in a project, it limits the features they can access in this project. Users can have different project roles in different projects. Here's a video that explains this in more details.
Jira Product Discovery & Jira Software / Advanced Roadmaps
How should I think Jira Product Discovery vs. Advanced Roadmaps in Jira Software? Can I link the two together?
The best way to think about the two are:
-
Jira Product Discovery is here to help you with Discovery
-
Jira Software is here to help you with Delivery
Or put another way Jira Product Discovery helps you decide what to work on. Jira Software is where the work actually happens.
Advanced Roadmaps within Jira Software is used for planning sequencing, dependencies, and constraints for delivery work, or the ideas you’ve committed to. Learn more about the relationship here.
While you can’t link dependencies in Advanced Roadmap to ideas in Jira Product Discovery (yet), you can link your JPD ideas to individual delivery tickets/issues/epics to view progress of ideas to delivery.
Why would I use Jira Product Discovery to manage discovery work, and not the Jira Software project our squad is using to manage delivery?
Jira Product Discovery has custom features that are intended to help you with discovery, like adding insights to ideas, prioritising ideas with custom fields and votes, and visualising your ideas in different views such as boards, matrixes, and timelines.
How should I think about the relationship between “ideas” in Jira Product Discovery and “epics” and “backlog prioritization” in Jira Software?
JPD is best used to house ideas that you could work on, meaning it helps your team collect ideas, problems, opportunities, and solutions (many of which you may never do anything with) and decide which ones to prioritize and why. Backlog prioritization in Jira Software is for when you've already committed to working on an idea. Your backlog and epics should be how you breakdown and tackle the actual work.
To give a real example:
-
You might prioritise ideas in JPD and decide that building an automation feature is the ‘idea’ with the most potential ROI
-
You create an epic in Jira Software to build the automation feature
-
The epic will be made up of tasks and sub-tasks (and maybe more). Much of this will remain in the backlog which you can then move over as suits your needs
Can ideas in Jira Product Discovery link to issues in Jira Software, or only epics?
You can connect an idea/discovery ticket to an epic, an issue ticket, or any other issue type - it’s up to you!
Is it possible to import or migrate existing tickets/issues/epics from Jira Software into a Jira Product Discovery project?
Yes you can import Jira tickets into a Jira Product Discovery project using the bulk move feature. Learn more here.
Does delivery progress just show progress at the epic-level or the issues linked below the epic as well?
The progress bar shows delivery progress at the task level.
Is the relationship 1:1 or is it possible to link an idea in Jira Product Discovery to multiple Jira Software projects/boards?
Yes, you can link an idea to multiple epics or issues, across multiple projects in Jira Software - though only to one Jira Software site.
Can I use automation to sync Jira Software issues/epics with ideas in Jira Product Discovery?
Yes, you can use automation to copy descriptions from ideas to Jira Software tickets, sync dates, and change status. See Demo: project automation in Jira Product Discovery
Is it possible to manage product or “fix versions” within Jira Product Discovery?
Managing fix versions is not currently supported, but we have a team dedicated to improving the integration between Jira Product Discovery and Jira Software. Stay tuned!
Is it possible see the priority score for an idea linked to an Epic to help with backlog prioritization in Jira Software?
In Jira Software, when an idea is linked to an epic, you will see the idea as a linked issue, and you can easily click into that idea to see the priority score in the list of fields in the right column.
When creating an epic directly from Jira Product Discovery, will it still be created if we leave any of the mandatory fields empty?
No, you must complete all required fields.
Can you link ideas and epics/issues from within Jira Software, instead of from Jira Product Discovery?
Not at the moment but we will get there!
Can you use Jira Software fields for the custom formula fields in Jira Product Discovery (ie instead of effort, using story points)
No, you are not able to use fields from Jira Software in custom fields or formulas in Jira Product Discovery.
Jira Product Discovery & Jira Service Management / Confluence / Jira Align / Atlas
What is the difference between Jira Product Discovery and Atlas?
Jira Product Discovery is intended to help you keep track of ideas and prioritize them accordingly. Atlas is focused on communicating progress on existing work that's in flight.
Jira Product Discovery will soon integrate with two concepts in Atlas: goals and projects. You can show how ideas in Jira Product Discovery connect to current projects and align to company goals by grouping ideas by goals, grouping ideas by project status, and syncing idea target dates with Atlas project target dates. Learn more here.
How can you set up and manage Goals or OKRs, is it a custom field like elsewhere in Jira?
You can define goals as a separate field in Jira Product Discovery. Read more about custom fields here. You then can use these fields to create views and roadmaps that show the progress of your ideas against these goals.
You can also integrate with Atlassian’s tool built for goal-tracking, Atlas. Jira Product Discovery is testing an integration that will allow you to track your ideas as part of these goals. Ask for early access here
How does Jira Product Discovery integrate with Confluence? Can you publish views from JPD in Confluence?
You can use Confluence with Jira Product Discovery for 3 use cases:
- Capturing insights from pages, e.g. from customer interviews.
- Writing specifications/one-pagers
- Publishing your roadmap to the rest of the company
Here is a demo for how to use Confluence and Jira Product Discovery
How does Jira Product Discovery fit with Jira Align?
Both tools can be used within the same organization:
-
Jira Product Discovery was built specifically for prioritization and roadmapping at the team or product level.
-
Jira Align is an integrated agile-at-scale solution that lets you strategically plan (enterprise agile planning, dependency management, and value engineering) at the organization, or teams of teams, level.
We will be providing more guidance here soon.
How does Jira Product Discovery integrate with Jira Service Management?
Our Jira Service Management integration allows you to add support tickets as insights to provide more context about your user problems. Learn more here.
Product Management Craft
This post will have more resources over time, bookmark!
Which prioritization methods can I use to prioritize ideas in Jira Product Discovery?
This is up to you! You can use a formula that takes into account things like impact and effort to calculate a priority score. Here's an example for how to configure your project to use the RICE formula (Reach * Impact * Confidence / Effort) Demo: using RICE to prioritize ideas
How do you recommend grooming or preventing a list of ideas from becoming too lengthy?
View our guidance here.
A big part of product discovery is defining the problem space as robustly as possible. How does Jira Product Discovery help with this?
This is one of the main benefits of Jira Product Discovery. In Jira Product Discovery, ideas can represent a customer problem, and you can use all the functionality within ideas to define the problem: insights from other tools and research, comments and input from teammates, descriptions with a detailed explanation of the problem and its importance, etc.
You can also start with one of the templates such as ‘hypotheses testing’ to help define the problem comprehensively and ensure you are comparing ideas equally.
Jira Product Discovery integrations
View our list of integrations here. To suggest new integrations directly to our product team, submit via the “Give feedback” in product.
To import ideas from another tool, see export ideas into Jira Product Discovery via a CSV file.
What information is included with the Zendesk integration?
Our Zendesk integration allows you to add support tickets and filters to ideas to keep track of important problems to fix. Read more about our integrations here.
Is it possible to integrate data within a discovery project with an Analytics tool ?
Jira Product Discovery has integrations with Pendo to add features usage and user requests and Amplitude to add product analytics. Read more about our integrations here.
What is the main difference between Jira Product Discovery and Productboard? Is there an integration with Productboard?
The main benefits of Jira Product Discovery are its native integration with Jira Software and that we are half the price. The native integration means that everyone with access to Jira will immediately be able to participate in prioritization discussions in Jira Product Discovery, as contributors, for free. You can @mention them and they'll receive a notification: no need for a separate tool that puts product managers on a separate island.
It also means connecting ideas to delivery just works out of the box, no need for data synchronization which is often prone to errors. You can create reports that include both discovery and delivery work. The list goes on. You can also see an analysis from one of our users who was making the very same comparison here.
Currently, there is no integration with Productboard, but you can export ideas into Jira Product Discovery via a CSV file. To add insights, you would need to use our public API.
Is there an integration between Jira Product Discovery ideas and Microsoft Teams Slack?
Yes, Jira Product Discovery does integrate with Microsoft Teams and Slack to connect projects or add ideas and insights.
Does Jira Product Discovery integrate with a tool like Salesforce to connect account data?
Jira Product Discovery does have an integration with Salesforce that allows you to import data from selected fields and use it as fields in Jira Product Discovery for purposes of prioritization. Learn more here.
What are the main advantages of using Jira Product Discover over creating the same tables in Notion?
While you can use Notion to create similar views, one of the main advantages of Jira Product Discovery is that all your work will be on the same Jira platform. So discovery work will take place in Jira Product Discovery and software building will take place in Jira Software, and you can seamlessly connect the two. This drastically reduces the time to move from discovery to delivery and gives the product team a view into the delivery work that is happening directly from within Jira Product Discovery. Learn more about this integration here.
Was this helpful?
Thanks!
John McKiernan
12 comments