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If you’ve followed Jira’s evolution over the years, you know it’s changed dramatically, both in its capabilities and look and feel. Jira was first released in 2002 specifically to help software development teams track their tasks and bugs. As the tool grew in popularity, additional audiences were attracted to its affordable price, clean interface, and great reporting features. Before, there were different Jira application types and deployment types, but other types of teams were adopting Jira and working around dev-specific features and terminology. I used a Jira software project as a help desk long before Jira Service Management existed. And I’ve taught more than one business team that if they ignore terms like “epic,” “issue,” and “fix version,” Jira could meet their team's task-tracking needs too!

As interest and demand grew, more teams, such as marketing, finance, and legal, were leveraging Jira. With the introduction of Jira Core in 2015 and Jira Work Management in Cloud in 2021, business teams finally had a collaboration experience tailored to their way of working without needing to dodge software-specific features.

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Introducing Jira Product Discovery

In 2023, Atlassian launched Jira Product Discovery (JPD), a dedicated Jira flavor to help product teams track and prioritize ideas. Again, so many of us were already tracking initiatives in a dedicated business project, so it was exciting to have a purpose-built solution for this specific use case. For organizations tracking ideas in spreadsheets, emails, or sticky notes, JPD brings structure and proper statusing, sharing, and reporting to the chaos. Simply, Jira Product Discovery bridges the gap between the conception of an idea and developing and releasing it in Jira Software.

JPD is only available in Jira Cloud, and like other Cloud products, there are different plans with different features and price points. If you’re familiar with Jira Service Management (JSM), you know that the pricing model differs from other types of Jira. JSM is priced by the number of agents, which are help desk team members, support staff, or the users who fulfill and respond to requests. JSM customers (internal or external) who request help from the portal are free and unlimited. JPD follows a similar model. Users who manage ideas and require licenses are called creators. Users who contribute to the ideas list by creating, viewing, and commenting are free and unlimited. There is a free plan, a standard plan, and a premium plan is on the way. See Atlassian’s pricing page for a full list of plans, features, and permission differences for creators and contributors.

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Comparing Jira Work Management and Jira Product Discovery

The best way to learn about a new product or feature is to try it out! Since both can be used to manage ideas, let’s compare a Jira Work Management project with a Jira Product Discovery project. Both project types are available in Jira Cloud. This lets us see the differences and features intended for business users versus product owners.

In my test environment, I created a JWM project using the built-in “Blank project” template and a second project using the JPD “Product discovery” template.

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Initial Views

Here’s a quick look at a list of ideas in both Jira project types.

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Jira Work Management Initial View

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“List” view in a Jira Work Management team-managed project in Jira Cloud

The list view in JWM shows issues in a table or spreadsheet-like display. By default, basic issue data like the type, key, summary, and status are shown. You can customize the columns and their order. You also can sort, group, and filter the data. Best of all, this view allows in-line editing. Simply click on a table cell to add or update selected data.

The example shows one parent issue (MI-2) and another parent issue (MI-3) with two sub-tasks (MI-4 and MI-5). Sub-tasks are nested under parent issues. Simply click the arrow next to the parent to expand or collapse that information.

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Jira Product Discovery Initial View

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The initial view in a JPD project is named “All Ideas.” It’s similar to “list view” with customizable columns, sorting, filtering, and in-line editing. This project type doesn’t use issue types or parent-child relationships, however. Instead, the “category” field is used to group issues. In the example, the “Web Hosting” category contains four ideas. Click the arrow to expand or collapse the idea list.

This project type contains unique features and UI functionality unavailable in other project types. For example, the “goals” column is a multi-select field but with additional attributes. In other Jira projects, multi-select custom field options contain a name and a display order. In this project type, however, options can also have an emoji icon and a custom color. Colors enhance the display, and icons help users visually group and recognize similar information.

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The “impact” and “effort” columns also have some unique UI aspects. They essentially perform like the standard “priority” field but instead of a drop-down selection list, users click one of five dots to reflect a low-to-high value. The value is represented graphically in this view and in the individual idea.

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However, in the background, the “impact” value is stored as a number. This means you can query for a certain value, whether a value exists, or use the number in an automation calculation, for example.

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Good to Know

The “impact” field in a JPD project is different from the “impact” field in a Jira Service Management project. Look at the JQL query in the screenshot above. The “impact” field was translated to cf[10225], meaning custom field ID #10225.

To query the other “impact” field in a JSM project, use the format Impact[Dropdown] instead.

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Issue Views

Here’s a quick look at an individual idea in both Jira project types.

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Jira Work Management Issue View

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This view contains all the standard issue elements common in all Jira projects. Multiple toolbars are on the top and options on the right for managing this specific issue. The issue’s summary and description are on the left and additional people and date fields are in the right sidebar. As this project type is intended for business teams, there are no software-specific features (like the development panel or fix version field) and no support-specific features (like service level agreement goals) in other Jira application types.

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Jira Product Discovery Issue View

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This view for an idea in a JPD project is even further simplified. The two top toolbars are replaced by a few icons and a simple menu at the top right. Additional JPD-specific fields with their colorful attributes are shown on the right sidebar.

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Good to Know

The “idea” issue type used in a JPD project is automatically created by Jira when the project is created. However, the type does not appear on the issue types admin page, and as such, there are no configurable elements.

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Project Administration Views

Here’s a quick look at project admin settings in both Jira project types. This area contains the most differences.

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Jira Work Management Project Settings

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The “access” project setting page on the left looks a lot like other people, users, and roles settings in other types of Jira. It has a simple list of users and a drop-down menu to select one or more project-specific roles for each.

The “Task” issue type project setting page on the right shows the type’s fields. Add additional fields to the project’s only screen by dragging them from the right sidebar. (Team-managed projects don’t have separate create, view, and edit screens.) Then, expand the field to customize any settings. You can also access the type’s workflow from this page. As this is a team-managed project, it is scheme-less, meaning the settings are not shared with other Jira projects. Team-managed projects are meant to be easy to administer by less technical users.

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Jira Product Discovery Project Settings

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The project settings admin area for a JPD project shows another attempt to make Jira project configuration easier. The image on the left shows the different “creator” and “contributor” roles, along with any individually named users.

The image on the right is very different, however. As there’s only one non-configurable issue type in the project, there’s simply a “fields” page. The fields are presented in table format, with additional options available by clicking the cog or gear icon on the right. Like team-managed JWM projects, JPD projects are also scheme-less.

While the project settings user interface differs between team-managed Jira Work Management projects and Jira Product Discovery projects, the configuration concepts are similar.

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Which to Use?

Now that you’ve looked at both project types, which Jira Cloud project should you use to track your ideas? If you like the new colorful visual elements and purpose-built features in JPD projects, it’s a good method for idea management. JPD projects also have additional specific views for assessing overall impact and assessing impact versus effort. You’ll find these views and others in the project’s left sidebar.

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If you’re already successfully tracking ideas in a Jira Work Management team-managed project or using the advanced project configuration features of a company-managed project (like schemes and advanced permissions, for example), I’d probably leave my idea data where it is. Both are good options, though, so as always, choose whichever makes the most sense for long-term Jira management and end-user adoption.

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Activities to Try

Now it’s your turn! I suggest creating a Jira Product Discovery project to experiment with in your test environment. Don’t forget to enter some sample data and transition ideas through the workflow to test out the project-specific features and see how they work in real-world scenarios.

Resources

• Jira Product Discovery documentation — https://support.atlassian.com/jira-product-discovery 
• How to get started with Jira Product Discovery Webinar — https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Product-Discovery-articles/How-to-get-started-with-Jira-Product-Discovery-Webinar-recording/ba-p/2375106 
• How to uplevel your product discovery practice with Jira Product Discovery — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp0q7YVYM4c