In product development, effective product discovery can make or break a project. According to research, a staggering percentage of new product ideas fail due to a lack of proper discovery and validation processes. This article explores how using Routemap can empower your team to enhance product discovery in Jira, efficiently gather and evaluate ideas, and streamline your roadmap planning.
Jira is well known for managing software projects and workflows. However, in the discovery phase – where ideas are generated, validated, and refined – Jira can benefit from additional tools.
That’s where Routemap comes in – a robust, user-friendly structure to Jira for everything from idea management to prioritization and roadmap visualization. In this use case article, we’ll see how Routemap transforms Jira into a powerful product discovery tool.
What is Product Discovery?
Product discovery is the process of understanding user needs and identifying solutions that will resonate with them. In this phase, teams work to align on a product vision, collect insights, and refine ideas before development.
By focusing on discovery, teams reduce the risk of building features or products that miss the mark with customers.
The key objectives here are to clearly identify user needs and learn what is lacking in the current market. Additionally, it is important to ensure ideas have strong evidence and alignment with user needs before development starts.
Understanding the circumstances, Atlassian developed their own feature – Product Discovery for Jira – to help agile teams navigate countless ideas and focus on the most important features.
Challenges when using Jira product discovery
As we know, Jira itself developed a Product Discovery project template to help teams manage ideas. Moreover, it empowers teams to collect new ideas and monitor them closely from ideation to delivery.
However, there is always a catch, or some to be precise. Most agile teams on the Jira platform will face challenges when using product discovery in Jira.
1. Challenges in stakeholder engagement
Jira’s workflow-oriented structure often focuses on developers and project managers, leaving limited room for broader team involvement in product discovery. Therefore, inviting cross-functional stakeholders (e.g., marketing, sales, customer support) into the discovery phase is difficult without additional collaborative tools.
Not only that, communicating the value of specific ideas or changes to non-technical stakeholders is less intuitive in Jira. As a result, it potentially limits buy-in from key decision-makers.
2. Dependency tracking between discovery and delivery phases
Product discovery and development often overlap, and linking validated ideas with actionable delivery tasks is crucial. However, tracking dependencies between discovery tasks and development issues is challenging in Jira as it doesn’t support workflow integration across these phases.
Especially when it involves multiple projects, teams normally work on different tasks on different projects, leading to overlap responsibility. As a result, validated ideas can sometimes fall through the cracks when they transition from discovery to development.
3. High pricing plan and fees
Jira Product Discovery, or Jira as a whole, can get pretty expensive. Especially when your teams are large with lots of members, or your organization demands specific needs that require a higher pricing plan.
If you’re relying on a tight budget, this will become one of the first things coming to your mind, not the feature’s usability.
4. Not ideal for non-technical users
Jira’s complex configuration and workflow structure can make it intimidating for non-technical stakeholders. Teams like product, marketing, or customer support teams, may not be familiar with the tool and struggle trying to understand the app.
Besides, teams may experience friction in involving non-technical users, which can hinder collaboration and diverse input from across the organization.
How can Routemap help with product discovery in Jira?
From version 1.7.2-AC for Jira Cloud, Routemap users can leverage the app’s latest feature – Ideas Portal for Jira – to collect ideas and manage the whole ideation process. The best part is that you can also use this portal to effortlessly collect ideas or feedback from external users or stakeholders.
Additionally, Routemap offers a structured, collaborative approach to product discovery in Jira, allowing teams to move efficiently from ideation to roadmap planning.
1. Create a product discovery project
To begin the discovery process, you can create a new board in Routemap and remember to check the box for turning on the Ideas portal feature. This template is designed specifically for product discovery, making it easy to set up and track key details like goals, timelines, and measurable objectives.
Start by defining the product vision – a clear statement that describes the purpose and aspirations for the product or feature. This vision serves as the guiding star for the project, helping the team stay focused on the core value they aim to deliver.
Alongside the vision, establish measurable goals that outline specific success criteria. These goals provide a concrete basis for prioritizing ideas and tracking validation efforts, enabling the team to gauge progress and make informed decisions.
2. Idea generation and management
Routemap simplifies the collection and organization of ideas, streamlining the early stages of product discovery. Team members and stakeholders can submit ideas directly within the Routemap project, creating a centralized repository for all potential features and concepts.
This centralization ensures that valuable ideas are captured and makes it easy to revisit and refine them over time. Additionally, Routemap allows you to categorize and organize idea submissions using dedicated swimlanes and importance filters.
As a result, these tools empower the team to focus on ideas aligned with their goals quickly.
3. Collaboration and feedback
Effective collaboration is key to successful product discovery, and Routemap includes a suite of tools designed to foster team engagement and gather input from diverse stakeholders. Within the discovery project, assign roles and responsibilities to ensure that each team member understands their role in the process.
This clarity promotes accountability and streamlines communication, enabling more productive collaboration. Routemap also supports interactive feedback through comments and voting, making it easy to encourage discussion and build consensus around the most promising ideas.
By actively engaging stakeholders in the feedback process, Routemap helps teams gather valuable insights and refine concepts based on a wide range of perspectives.
4. Prioritization and validation
With Routemap, prioritizing and validating ideas becomes a systematic, data-driven process. The platform enables teams to score ideas based on various criteria, such as return on investment (ROI), feasibility, and overall impact.
Besides, this scoring process helps teams rank ideas objectively, allowing them to focus on high-impact ideas that are achievable and aligned with business objectives. To further validate these concepts, teams can plan small experiments or create prototypes to test ideas before committing to full development.
Routemap’s tracking features allow teams to record insights and results from these experiments directly within the project, helping to refine and validate concepts iteratively. Therefor, this structured approach ensures that only well-supported ideas move forward to the development phase.
5. Roadmap planning
Once ideas have been gathered, evaluated, and validated, Routemap’s visual roadmapping tools make it easy to plan a clear, actionable development timeline. Using Routemap’s drag-and-drop functionality, teams can create timelines, set milestones, and adjust schedules as needed, allowing for flexible planning that can accommodate evolving priorities.
Additionally, Routemap enables users to link related tasks, helping to identify and manage dependencies between different project components. By understanding these interdependencies and potential risks, teams can develop a realistic and achievable roadmap that guides the product from discovery to delivery.
This visual roadmap not only enhances team alignment but also provides stakeholders with a clear view of the product’s progress and strategic direction.
Final thought
Routemap transforms Jira from a project tracking tool to a full-fledged product discovery platform, making it easy to gather, validate, and prioritize ideas. By following these steps, teams can engage in a structured, data-driven discovery process that yields impactful results.
Product discovery is an ongoing journey, and tools like Routemap enable teams to refine and align with customer needs continuously. Start exploring Routemap in your Jira environment and experience the benefits of a streamlined, collaborative approach to product discovery.
