How Aha! helped us save time updating our product roadmaps

Chris Stocker

Product Segment Leader

We had a problem

Our organization recently merged with another company. This allows us to combine technologies and build solutions that can better serve our customers’ wants and needs. But bringing together different products, teams, and processes also creates a lot of complexity.We were struggling to align roadmaps, manage dependencies, and set priorities across product teams and with R&D. This was because different teams used different tools to manage their work. We needed one system to bring our product teams together and set priorities.

We also needed a better way to track customer requests, see how features relate to strategic initiatives, and streamline how we interact with R&D. This was critical to moving the business forward by delivering new products to market faster.

Aha! as a solution

Aha! allows us to build product roadmaps in an agile way. We define initiatives and set a timeline for achieving them. Then, we set release themes to focus implementation efforts. The features board makes it easy to visualize our release plans, set the priority of features, and define detailed requirements.

We use the integration with Jira to streamline how product management interacts with engineering on features and priorities. Now that we can prioritize upcoming work in one place, features are sent to engineering — and coded — in the correct order. As implementation gets underway, the integration lets us track progress and work closely with engineering to build high-quality features. Having a single system of records eliminates the need to check multiple tools and dashboards.

Aha! reduces the time it takes to coordinate and update product roadmaps by 20 percent. This allows us to spend more time talking to customers, understanding their needs, and building world-class products.

We also integrate Aha! with other important business tools, such as Salesforce and Slack. This makes it easier to capture customer requests and collaborate as a broader team. The ability to publish roadmaps via Aha! notebooks lets us instantly communicate product updates across the entire organization.

Life is good

Aha! brings our entire product management organization together — in one place. This allows us to standardize how we build roadmaps, define features and requirements, and prioritize customer requests. It also helps us keep everyone in sync when plans need to be adjusted.

Now we can clearly identify and track relationships between products and teams. This makes it easier to manage features that impact multiple platforms and products. We can also automatically notify everyone impacted by the changes so they can adjust their plans accordingly. Product dependencies are no longer overlooked, reducing the risk of delay.

Aha! is vital to our agile delivery model. It allows us to respond quickly to new opportunities and work together in sync to build better products, faster.

We can now easily visualize and report on product management information. This reduces the time it takes to generate executive reports by 30 percent. No question is left unanswered. We use tags to capture important business details — such as specific customer requests and investment areas. This allows us to analyze data across products, so we can see how everything ties together and find gaps in our plans.