Innovations are what keep organizations and businesses (especially the ones using Jira) to compete and thrive. They constantly seek new ideas to enhance products, streamline processes, and deliver value to customers.
However, it can be challenging to make any Jira idea management without a structured system.
Fortunately, Atlassian (creator of the Jira platform) invented a solution for their users – Jira Product Discovery (JPD). In this article, we’ll walk you through the steps to set up Jira as a powerful idea management system, helping your team stay organized, make data-driven decisions, and drive innovation.
Understand idea management and Why it matters
Idea management is the systematic process of collecting, organizing, evaluating, and implementing ideas within an organization. For companies, this practice is essential. It fosters creativity and ensures nurturing and aligning the best ideas with broader business goals.
However, managing ideas can lead to bottlenecks, lost insights, and missed opportunities without a centralized system.
Jira, with its customizable features and robust tracking capabilities, is uniquely positioned to support this process. By repurposing Jira for idea management, teams can gain visibility into their pipeline of ideas, prioritize the most impactful concepts, and maintain an organized flow from initial submission to execution.
Set up Jira idea management with product discovery
To make Jira an effective platform for idea management, it’s essential to customize the setup to handle the unique requirements of idea tracking and evaluation. Here’s a step-by-step approach to configuring Jira for this purpose.
1. Create a project
Begin by choosing a project template that aligns with your needs. While Jira offers several project templates, a “Project Management” template or a custom project can be ideal for idea management. When creating a new project, tailor it to support a pipeline where ideas move through stages such as submission, review, approval, and implementation.
In this case, you can go for the Product Discovery template from Jira.
Additionally, you should set up permissions thoughtfully. While all team members should be encouraged to submit ideas, only specific roles, like product managers or leadership, should be able to approve or reject ideas. This setup creates a balanced system where ideas are freely generated but undergo structured evaluation.
2. Assign members’ roles
A customized workflow ensures ideas flow smoothly from inception to realization. For example, an idea workflow might include the following stages:
- Idea Submission: The initial stage where team members can submit new ideas.
- In Review: Ideas are reviewed by relevant stakeholders to assess feasibility and alignment with business goals.
- Approved: Approved ideas are moved forward for further planning or development.
- In Progress: Ideas in this stage are actively being implemented.
- Implemented: The final stage for ideas that have been executed and are live.
In Jira, you can design this workflow to represent the steps your team uses, helping everyone see the exact stage of each idea. Permissions can be assigned to ensure each stage has appropriate reviewers and decision-makers.
3. Start adding ideas
Adding ideas is straightforward and a core part of using Jira Product Discovery. Click the blue Create button within your project view to add a new idea. After creating an idea, click on it to open a detailed view where you can add descriptions, attach files, or provide additional context.
This feature ensures that each idea is well-documented, making it easier for team members to understand its purpose and potential. As the idea evolves, additional details can be added to maintain a complete record, helping stakeholders evaluate the idea more effectively.
4. Create or update custom fields
Custom fields play a key role in describing, comparing, and prioritizing ideas. For example, fields like “Goal,” “Effort Level,” “Business Impact,” and “Priority” can help teams make data-driven decisions.
To set up these fields, click the Fields + button in your project, where you can add new fields relevant to your product discovery process. Jira offers both standard and custom field options, allowing you to adapt each idea to fit your team’s specific needs.
Customizing fields in this way makes it easier to analyze ideas consistently and prioritize those that align best with company goals.
5. Add insights for Jira idea management
Enriching ideas with insights—such as customer feedback, market research, or product analytics—gives context to each concept and helps the team understand its relevance and potential impact. Within an idea’s detailed view, navigate to the Insights tab and click Create an insight.
Here, you can paste relevant text or attach links to external resources, like customer feedback or tickets from Jira Service Management. This feature consolidates valuable information, ensuring team members see the full picture behind each idea.
6. Prioritize ideas
After documenting ideas, prioritization is key to deciding which to pursue first. You can use methods like the R.I.C.E framework or your criteria to score each idea based on its potential impact and feasibility.
In Jira Product Discovery, click Create a view + in the left-hand navigation, and select Create a new list. Here, you can sort and rank ideas based on fields like impact score or priority.
For a more visual comparison, create a matrix view by selecting Create a view + and Create a new matrix. This setup allows you to see ideas in a comparative layout, making it easier to identify high-priority items at a glance.
7. Create and share this product roadmap
After prioritizing your ideas, developing a roadmap provides a strategic view of how ideas will progress over time.
In the Product Discovery project, click Create a view + and choose Create a new board. This lets you create columns such as “Now,” “Next,” and “Later” to visually organize ideas by their implementation timeline.
For a more timeline-focused approach, select Create a new timeline to set start and end dates in months or quarters. Then, you can add ideas to the timeline by clicking the blue + icon next to each idea.
Besides, you can share Roadmaps with contributors for collaborative feedback. Or, you can also create a read-only view for stakeholders to track progress without editing capabilities. This roadmap provides a cohesive view, helping teams and stakeholders stay aligned on priorities.
Alternatives to Jira idea management
For teams exploring alternatives to Jira’s idea management capabilities, Routemap’s Ideas Portal offers a focused and user-friendly approach to capturing, organizing, and prioritizing ideas. Unlike Jira, which is primarily for project and issue tracking, Routemap’s Ideas Portal is built for collecting and managing feedback directly from internal teams, customers, and external stakeholders.
The Ideas Portal is simple and accessible, making it easy for users to submit ideas and upvote others. It’s an ideal choice for organizations looking to foster collaboration and engagement with a broader community, as it offers built-in tools for collecting real-time feedback, scoring ideas, and gaining insights into the most popular suggestions.
Additionally, Routemap’s Ideas Portal includes features for tracking idea progression, much like Jira, but with a more dedicated focus on the ideation process itself.
Organizing and prioritizing ideas in Jira
Organizing ideas systematically and prioritizing the best ones ensures that your team focuses on high-impact projects. Here are some ways to use Jira’s features to bring structure to your idea management process.
1. Using labels and categories
Jira allows for labeling and categorizing ideas based on relevance or department. For example, ideas might be labeled by categories like “Revenue Generation,” “Process Improvement,” or “Customer Feedback.” Using labels or custom fields, you can quickly filter ideas to see what aligns with current goals or the interests of different departments.
Categories can also help cross-functional teams focus on areas relevant to their work. For example, marketing teams can focus on ideas tagged with “Customer Insights” or “Brand Awareness,” while engineering teams focus on ideas tagged with “Technology Improvements.”
2. Set up prioritization criteria
Establishing clear prioritization criteria is essential for idea management. Set up a scoring rubric with criteria such as potential impact, feasibility, alignment with company goals, and resource requirements. In Jira, you can create custom fields for scoring or grading each idea, making it easy to filter and prioritize ideas that best align with the organization’s strategic goals.
For example, if an idea has a high impact and aligns well with long-term goals but requires low resources, it might be a high-priority idea. Conversely, ideas with lower impact or high complexity might be deprioritized. Scoring ideas objectively can help reduce bias and ensure focusing resources on high-value ideas.
3. Apply filters and boards for easy navigation
Filters and boards are powerful tools in Jira that allow teams to navigate and organize ideas effortlessly. You can create custom filters by using Jira Query Language (JQL) to quickly pull up ideas based on categories, priorities, or departments.
A Kanban board or Scrum board can visually represent the flow of ideas. Each column can represent a stage in the workflow, such as “Submission,” “In Review,” or “Implemented,” allowing stakeholders to track progress visually. Boards give everyone a clear view of which ideas are in progress, making it easier to track overall progress and identify any bottlenecks in the pipeline.
Streamline Jira idea management with automation and integrations
Automation can significantly enhance idea management by reducing manual tasks and ensuring that ideas are always moving through the pipeline. Here are some strategies for using automation and integrations in Jira to improve idea management.
1. Automating idea tracking and notifications
With Jira’s automation rules, you can create workflows that automatically notify stakeholders when an idea advances to the next stage. For example, when an idea reaches the “Approved” status, relevant team members will receive a notification, alerting them to begin planning. Automation can also assign ideas to specific reviewers based on triggers, such as when labeling an idea for a particular department.
2. Integrating with Confluence for documentation
Confluence integrates seamlessly with Jira, providing a space for teams to document detailed information about each idea. When an idea moves into review, stakeholders can create a Confluence page for in-depth analysis, feasibility studies, and concept diagrams. Then, they can link that page to the corresponding Jira issue.
This integration offers a holistic view of each idea’s potential, including all background information, and ensures stakeholders have easy access to relevant documents.
Final thoughts
Jira’s flexibility and powerful tracking features make it an excellent idea management platform, transforming how teams capture and prioritize ideas. By setting up customized workflows, organizing ideas with labels and boards, and using automation, teams can ensure a structured flow from idea inception to implementation.
With this approach, organizations can foster innovation and collaboration, ensuring that the best ideas are captured, evaluated, and brought to life. Start experimenting with these features today, and watch your idea management process become more efficient and impactful.
