Learn how to effectively use Idea and Opportunity Management in ProductPlan to validate and prioritize your roadmap initiatives.
Idea & Opportunity Management
Use the Product Discovery space to collect feedback, manage ideas and validate business opportunities. With these new idea management features, product teams will be able to make better decisions more quickly and feel confident about what makes it onto the roadmap.
To get started navigate to the top right-hand corner of your screen and click the lightbulb icon! From here you can begin submitting ideas or creating opportunities. It is important to note that Idea Management exists at the account level, so all users must be part of the same team to access their idea and opportunity management space.
From the Idea management space, you can collect new product ideas in a clean, central repository making it easier to analyze ideas and identify opportunities. From this page you will be able to assign customers to ideas, tag ideas, assign ideas to opportunities, and describe the “how” behind your opportunities. Select ideas in bulk to either add to an opportunity or create a new one. Both editors and viewers are able to submit ideas to the team.
You will also have the option to import existing ideas your team has compiled via CSV/XLS spreadsheet. You can find an example template for use here.
Editors can create intake forms and provide prompts about any topics they choose to ask for feedback. The form can be customized with a title and directions. The form will have the standard Idea fields. For more information, check out the collecting feedback with idea form article.
The opportunity management space helps your team to determine which problems are worth solving. From this page define your opportunities and validate them with ideas you have captured. Creating opportunities requires an editors license.
To connect opportunities to your roadmap, you'll want to begin in the Idea & Opportunity portal. Select the opportunity you're looking to add to the bar/container and select +Connect to bar or container from the righthand side menu. You can either create a new bar/container in the parked section or select an already existing bar/container.
If you would like to add an opportunity from your roadmap, click into a bar click into the bar details on your roadmap, select the Opportunities tab, and connect the opportunity.
Editors can connect Opportunities to Objectives from either direction. This can occur in both our Strategy and Discovery spaces, from individual opportunities or objectives. You will see the opportunity count displayed on objective cards in the objectives overview. Similarly, you'll notice the objective count and list are displayed on opportunity cards in the Opportunities overview.
Within each objective, there will be a blue action button titled + Add (or + if an opportunity is already attached the objective). Once you click the Add button, a pop up will appear where you can select an existing opportunity or create a new opportunity.
Within each opportunity, there will be a field titled Objectives. You will be able to select from the dropdown of all existing objectives. You will be able to connect an opportunity to multiple objectives.
Overall, the goal is to help with initiative planning and ensuring there's a story being told from start to finish with your opportunities and objectives.
Objectives will be displayed in alphabetical order on the opportunity. Archived opportunities cannot be connected to objectives, but they will remain on the objective detail if connected while active (identified as archived) for historical purposes. You are not able to filter opportunities by objective or objective by opportunity.
Note: Product Discovery is a Professional and Enterprise feature. Please contact our team if you have any questions about using it!