If you’re stepping into Jira Product Discovery for the first time, welcome! This tool is essentially a workspace where you can organize, prioritize, and refine product ideas before handing them off for development. It’s a great space for product managers (and anyone in product-related roles) to keep track of everything from initial ideas to fully fleshed-out roadmaps.
Let’s walk through setting up a project and getting the most out of Jira Product Discovery without getting bogged down in technical details.
Step 1: Set Up Your Project
Once you’re logged in, start by creating a new project. Just hit “Create project” in the top navigation, then choose the Product discovery template.
This template is a ready-made setup for collecting and managing ideas, making it perfect for brainstorming, gathering insights, and prioritizing tasks without needing to build everything from scratch.
Step 2: Assign Roles (Creators vs. Contributors)
Jira Product Discovery works with two main user roles: Creators and Contributors.
- Creators are typically product managers (or the people who own the roadmap), and they get full access to add, edit, and organize ideas.
- Contributors can add comments and give feedback on ideas but don’t have access to all the management features.
To assign roles, go to Project settings > Access and add people based on how much input you want them to have.
Step 3: Start Adding Ideas
Ideas are the building blocks of any Jira Product Discovery project. Each idea can represent a problem, feature, opportunity, or even feedback from users. To add an idea, just hit the Create an idea button.
Here, you can include descriptions, attach any research or feedback you’ve gathered, and even tag it with relevant labels or categories. It’s a good practice to jot down as much detail as you have right away. Even if you don’t use all the info now, it’ll help later when you’re prioritizing.
Step 4: Set Up Custom Fields to Fit Your Prioritization Method
Custom fields are your friend here. These are basically data points you can use to describe and compare ideas – things like effort level, business impact, or target audience. You’ll find pre-set fields, but it’s also super easy to make your own if you want to track something specific, like “Customer Impact Score.”
To add a field, go to the Fields tab and select Create a new field. Then, choose from pre-set types or make your own.
Step 5: Bring in Insights
Insights give context to your ideas—like customer feedback, product analytics, or quotes from interviews. You can add insights manually within an idea by selecting the Insights tab, or you can use the Jira Product Discovery Chrome extension to clip snippets from around the web.
For example, if a customer requests a feature on Slack, you can add it as an insight to an idea in Jira Product Discovery, which helps build a case for or against prioritizing it.
Step 6: Prioritize Your Ideas
Now that you have a bunch of ideas, it’s time to decide which ones to tackle. You can create a prioritization view by adding criteria like Impact and Effort. The popular RICE (Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort) method is available if you like formulas, but you can just as easily go with simpler criteria, like a basic impact vs. effort matrix.
Head to Create a view in the navigation and try out the matrix view for an easy way to see what’s low effort but high impact (i.e., your “quick wins”).
Step 7: Build and Share a Roadmap
Roadmaps are great for showing everyone the big picture. Once you’ve sorted your priorities, create a roadmap by hitting Create a view > Board view and then selecting the Roadmap option. Here, you can group tasks as “Now,” “Next,” or “Later” to give everyone a sense of what’s coming up without committing to specific dates.
If your stakeholders need more specifics, create a timeline view to show estimated delivery dates and milestones. It’s all about tailoring the view to what your team or leadership needs to know.
Step 8: Connect with Jira Software for Development
When you’re ready to turn ideas into action, connect them to your development work in Jira Software. Open an idea and select Delivery tab > Create a delivery ticket. This lets you link it directly to an epic or issue, making it easy for your dev team to pick up work without losing context.
Plus, Jira Product Discovery tracks delivery progress, so you get a birds-eye view of everything in progress.
Wrapping Up
And that’s it! Jira Product Discovery is flexible and can handle just about anything from early-stage ideas to fully committed roadmaps. Start small, and don’t worry if it takes time to find your groove. Once you’re familiar, you’ll see how it helps streamline everything from feedback gathering to product launch.
Happy discovering!