From multiple JPD roadmaps to a single Plan

[#1]

Hi there everyone!

I'm a Program Manager at Atlassian and I work in the part of the company that develops Jira. I’d like to share with you how I solved the challenge of bringing together multiple roadmaps (created in different Jira Product Discovery projects) into a single view using Plans (formerly known as Advance Roadmaps).

What problem did I want to solve?

Jira is developed by many teams within Atlassian (we refer to this as the Jira Organisation), and these teams are organised into small groups that each have a shared mission (we refer to these as Pillars). Each Pillar maintains a roadmap in their own JPD project for how they plan to move their mission forward, which in turn moves the overall Jira mission forward.

The trouble we found with roadmaps being in different JPD projects is that it was difficult to see the overall roadmap for Jira. For example, if someone wanted to find out what's shipping across all of Jira in the next quarter, they would either need to check many JPD projects - each of which is configured differently according to team preference - or they'd need to speak to each of the roadmap owners - and then compile the information in Confluence. All in all, it would take a lot of time to gather what should ideally be readily available information.

I've solved this in a way which, after the initial setup, still allows everyone to use their JPD projects almost exactly as they were and with minimal effort to show items on a singular, overall roadmap. Read on below to find out how!

The Solution

Step 1: Add Global Fields to the JPD projects

Global Fields are the key to this setup, and there's 2 that are essential:

1. A field to filter specific items to show on the Plan (more on filtering below in step 3). I used a select field type called Show on Jira roadmap?, and then roadmap owners set that field to yes for the items they want to show on the Plan. This gives roadmap owners control over what's shown on the Plan vs what stays only in JPD.

2. A field to differentiate each of the JPD projects. I again used a select type field called Pillar with options representing each group in Jira. This allows grouping in the Plan by each strategic pillar.

Only Jira administrators can created Global Fields, so you’ll need to lodge a request with your admin to get them created.

Step 2: Add Global Fields to JPD views and populate

After the Global Fields were created and added to the JPD projects by admin, I then added them to the relevant views in JPD and had roadmap owners populate them. I wrote a guide and handy checklist in Confluence to make it easy for everyone and I recommend doing the same.

Step 3: Create and save a JQL filter

When setting up the Plan I needed to define the issue source. I created a filter to find issues where the Show on Jira roadmap? field = yes, utilising the field I mentioned in step 1. I then saved the filter so that I could use it as my issue source when creating the Plan.

Step 4: Create a Plan

I then created a Plan and followed the setup steps. For issue source, I selected filter and chose the filter I saved in step 3.

Step 5: Adding Global Fields to the Plan

Now that the Plan is set up and the roadmap items are showing from the JPD projects, it’s time to add the Global Field, Pillar. To do this head to Fields and then Manage custom fields. From here you’ll be able to find and add whatever fields you’d like.

Step 6: Set up views in the Plan

I then modified the views in the Plan to make sure it served our needs. For example, in View settings I grouped by the 2nd Global Field that I described above in step 1 - Pillar. That meant that whilst we could see the overall roadmap, we could still see which group owned what items.

I also set up a number of saved views. For example, I had one view which showed every roadmap item, and then I had another which showed items belonging to a subset of related Pillars.

Step 7: Automate

Automation is a great way to save time/effort on certain tasks.

For the Pillar field, I set up automation in each JPD project so that this was automatically set every time an item was created. The field value was always the same in each JPD project, so this was a simple repetitive task that I could automate.

That's it!

I've of course simplified a few things to make it easier to explain the set up. In reality I used more Global Fields, more customisation of views, and more automation, but my aim here really was just to explain the basic setup.

I’d love to hear from you - have you had a similar challenge? If so, I’d love to hear how you’ve solved it! And of course, if you have any questions then I'd be more than happy to help :) 

[Dave Mathijs]

Interesting topic, bookmarking now. 🔖 Thanks for sharing @Adam Taylor ! 

[Adam Taylor]

Hey everyone!

In case you weren't aware, Jira Product Discovery Premium is in EAP at the moment. There's some awesome new features - one of which is 'cross-project views' - which allows you to bring information from various JPD projects into a single JPD project. The above solution I write about still works, of course, but with JPD premium you get a much more elegant and easy to maintain solution. It's worth checking out!

[Gergely Schmidt]

This solution misses an important aspect. So if you do this then you can only see and modify the dates in the overview page but not in the specific JPD. So as it is now you either only modify the dates in JPD or you only modify the dates in an overview. There is no sync between them. Which is a shame that JIRA cannot handle a date in their own system properly

[Máté Lipcsei]

@Adam Taylor

Thanks for the great tutorial, although some issues raised in this discussion that would be great to resolve, resonating to what @Gergely Schmidt raised.