How we created a defined planning process in Aha!

Josh Wiggins

Director of Project Management and Process Strategy

We had a problem

Previously, our product information was spread across multiple systems. We used Confluence to capture business requirements and Jira to manage the implementation. The information was hardly ever in sync between systems. For example, if the development team updated the technical requirements in Jira, these changes were not automatically reflected in Confluence. Our teams rely on having access to the most current product plans to know what is coming, to prepare for releases, and to set customer expectations. The lack of a single source of visibility caused confusion across the organization and miscommunication with clients.

We also struggled to provide the right level of insight for each of our internal teams. There are no roll-up capabilities in Confluence. This meant that everyone had to interpret the information for themselves to understand how it was relevant to their team. We needed a centralized system that all of our business users could easily access and understand.

Aha! as a solution

We now have a single platform that brings all of our product information together and provides real-time insights into our plans. It is the only solution that met our selection criteria — including ease of use for all of our business teams and seamless integration with Jira.

Our planning process is now more predictable, which allows us to set expectations more accurately with clients. It also enables internal teams — such as sales, marketing, documentation, training, and delivery — to work together more effectively to deliver quarterly product releases.

We used to guess when product features and requirements would be delivered. Aha! gives us transparency into our roadmap and keeps everyone informed of progress.

We also value the flexibility of the Jira integration. This has greatly improved our workflow between product management and development.

Life is good

Aha! is critical to our planning process. We use it daily for both short and long-term product roadmaps. We begin high-level planning for each release six months ahead, drilling into greater detail as we get closer. Although our organization works in an agile way, many of our clients still follow a waterfall approach. This means that we have to communicate detailed plans three months in advance so that they can align the necessary resources.

Aha! provides a single platform that allows us to deliver a consistent message about our products across all of our teams.

The broad range of roadmaps and reports in Aha! makes it easy to provide the right level of transparency across the organization. Everyone now has instant access to the information they need to do their job.