Aha! helped us bring consistency and transparency to our product plans.

Peter Fisher

Product Director, Financial Services

We had a problem

Previously, we used Microsoft PowerPoint to manage the roadmap for each individual product. This made it difficult to align plans and manage platform dependencies. And each time our plans changed, we had to manually update the deck and make sure everyone had the latest version.

Once the roadmap was set, we defined the features for each release in a spreadsheet. Our engineering team then managed the implementation in Jira. This approach created a disconnect between teams. Engineering lacked the big-picture context of what we wanted to accomplish and why. And we had limited visibility into how work was progressing. We needed a better way to communicate the roadmap and collaborate on getting the work done.

Aha! as a solution

We now use Aha! Roadmaps to set product strategy, manage our backlog, and plan upcoming releases. Capturing all of this information in one system brings greater consistency to the way we work. For example, everyone now uses the same templates for defining business models and personas. And we use the same roadmap templates to communicate the direction of our products — both at the portfolio and individual level.

Aha! Roadmaps provides a clear line of sight all the way from strategy through to the actual functionality we implement.

The planning board is ideal for defining what we want to build. We create epics to capture the major capabilities that will be included in each release and then break the work down into smaller features. The ability to link corresponding work items between Aha! Roadmaps and Jira makes it easy to track progress throughout the development process.

We also use the Gantt chart to coordinate launch activities with product marketing. With five products releasing major updates at the same time every six months, there are a lot of details to manage. Aha! Roadmaps helps us stay on top of who needs to do what and when — so we can meet our launch dates.

Life is good

Aha! Roadmaps increases the visibility of our strategic plans. Our leadership team can clearly see how every product investment supports the overall business strategy. And engineering benefits from understanding the why behind our product decisions. This transparency enables us all to work together more collaboratively — so we can achieve our vision.

We used to spend 30 percent of our time tracking down the status of features and updating presentations. Now we can create a beautiful, up-to-date roadmap in seconds.

These efficiency gains mean we can focus more of our time on planning what we want to build next. And we can use the rich product data we store in Aha! Roadmaps to make better business decisions.