One common mistake new Productboard users make is trying to do everything on the same screen.
In this article, you'll find examples of boards you can create for each stage in your workflow so you don't get overwhelmed.
Please choose either SMB or Enterprise, depending on your company type, and we will suggest suitable boards for each stage of your workflow.
SMB Company
This article shows the following boards examples:
Ideation
During this phase, Important brainstorming and discussions are happening. What is the next item up that has the potential to make it into your Product offering? Taking a look at areas like User Feedback, Market Analysis, and User Research would be ideal.
To set up this board, follow the steps below:
Board Organization
For the Ideation board, set the board organization, Grouped by to Hierarchy.
Filters
For the Ideation board, set the filters to display Status: New idea.
If you have multiple products, Filter which product to display in the Hierarchy menu.
Columns
Click the Add columns button, select
Default fields, and toggle on the User impact score (
) and Owner (
)
Segments: After clicking the columns button, you can select Segments and create or choose an existing one.
Competitors: The same applies for competitors, you find this option right after clicking the columns button.
UX Research Link: This is a text field you need to create, click Custom Fields, then Create field > Text
Prioritization
Now you have an idea of more items that you have committed to build and deliver to your users. In what Priority will you build them? Use this phase to include things like story pointing estimates, dependancies, and a Prioritization methodology such as: Value/Effort, RICE, KANO, WSJF, or ICE.
To set up this board, follow the steps below:
Board Organization
For the Prioritization board, set the board organization, Grouped by to Sorted list.
Filters
For a Prioritization board, set the filters to display Status: Candidate or Planned.
If you have multiple products, Filter which product to display in the Hierarchy menu.
Columns
Click the Add columns button and select:
- Select
Default fields, and toggle on the User impact score (
), Effort (
), Dependencies (
)
- Objective: Choose the objective you want to monitor.
- Tasks: Select JIRA. You need to add an integration first.
-
Drivers & Scores
and toggle on options based on your needs. We recommend selecting the drivers: Value, UX Magic, and Reach.
-
Drivers & Scores
Once you've identified the features you know you want to work on, click the feature status and set it to Planned.
Delivery Planning
While your features are being worked on, it's a good time to start thinking about planning for Delivery. At this point, you will want to keep things like Dependencies, Health, and Delivery Tasks up to date along with your release. If you have integrated with an Engineering platform, you can also view the status of that feature within that Platform and open the link directly from Productboard.
To set up this board, follow the steps below:
Board Organization
For the Delivery planning board, set the board organization, Grouped by to By Release then choose how you want to display releases. In this example, we selected Quarters.
Filters
For a Delivery planning board, set the filters to display Status: Planned and/or In Progress
Columns
Click the Add columns button and select:
), Health, and Dependencies (
-
Releases
and select the releases you want to plan for
-
Dev Lead and Product Manager Under Custom Fields, use a Project Member Custom Field
- Tasks: Here, you can add a task to check the progress on Release Notes, Internal Documentation, and JIRA.
Status board
Understand where each feature is at throughout its lifecycle.
To set up this board, follow the steps in the table:
Board Organization
For the Status board, set the board organization, Grouped by to Status
Filters
For a Status board, set the filters on which product to display if you have multiple products in the Hierarchy
Columns
Click the Add columns button, select
Default fields, and toggle on Owner (
)
In #Custom fields; we chose a dropdown field, for Teams.
Enterprise Company
This article shows the following boards examples:
- Ideation
- Discovery
- Prioritization
- Delivery Planning
- Release Management
- Post Launch Evaluation
- Status
- Top Requests
- Bug tracker
- Go-to-market teams
- Backlog grooming
- Leadership
- Engineering
Ideation
During this phase, Important brainstorming and discussions are happening. What is the next item up that has the potential to make it into your Product offering? Taking a look at areas like User Feedback, Market Analysis, and User Research would be ideal.
To set up this board, follow the steps below:
Board Organization
For the Ideation board, set the board organization, Grouped by to Hierarchy
Filters
For the Ideation board, set the filters to display Status: New idea.
If you have multiple products, Filter which product to display in the Hierarchy menu.
Columns
Click the Add columns button, select
Default fields, and toggle on the User impact score (
) and Owner (
)
Segments: After clicking the columns button, you can select Segments and create or choose an existing one.
Competitors: The same applies for competitors; you find this option right after clicking the columns button.
UX Research Link: This is a text field you need to create, click Custom Fields, then Create field > Text
Discovery
You have an idea of some Important pieces of your solution that need iteration or net new features. During discovery, you will be taking a deeper dive into things like High-level estimations of work, Story mapping to get some conversations started, potential prototyping, and testing. Feel free to add any tasks you and your team may do during this Investigative phase.
To set up this board, follow the steps below:
Board Organization
For the Discovery board, set the board organization, Grouped by to Sorted list
Filters
For a Discovery board, set the filters to display Status: Discovery.
Columns
Click the Add columns button and select:
-
).
- Tasks: After clicking the columns button, you can select Tasks; those are the tasks we advise: User Research, Story Mapping, Prototype, and Market Analysis.
-
Story Mapping Link and Mockup URL: These are a text field you need to create, click Custom Fields, then Create field > Text
-
T-shirt Sizing: This is a Single-select field you need to create; click Custom Fields, then Create field > Single select. You can add from 6 to 1 t-shirts 👕👕👕👕👕👕 to 👕.
- Architectural Feasibility Required?: This is a Single-select fields you need to create; click Custom Fields, then Create field > Single select, and add the options: YES or NO.
Prioritization
Now you have an idea of more items that you have committed to build and deliver to your users. In what Priority will you build them? Use this phase to include things like story pointing estimates, dependancies, and a Prioritization methodology such as: Value/Effort, RICE, KANO, WSJF, or ICE.
To set up this board, follow the steps below:
Board Organization
For the Prioritization board, set the board organization, Grouped by to Sorted list
Filters
For a Prioritization board, set the filters to display Status: Candidate or Planned.
If you have multiple products, Filter which product to display in the Hierarchy menu.
Columns
Click the Add columns button and select:
- Select
- Objective: Choose the objective you want to monitor.
- Tasks: Select JIRA. You need to add an integration first.
-
Drivers & Scores
-
Drivers & Scores
Once you've identified the features you know you want to work on, click the feature status and set it to Planned.
Delivery Planning
While your features are being worked on, it's a good time to start thinking about planning for Delivery. At this point, you will want to keep things like Dependencies, Health, and Delivery Tasks up to date along with your release. If you have integrated with an Engineering platform, you can also view the status of that feature within that Platform and open the link directly from Productboard.
To set up this board, follow the steps below:
Board Organization
For the Delivery planning board, set the board organization, Grouped by to By Release then choose how you want to display releases. In this example, we selected Quarters.
Filters
For a Delivery planning board, set the filters to display Status: Planned and/or In Progress
Columns
Click the Add columns button and select:
-
Releases
-
Dev Lead and Product Manager Under Custom Fields, use a Project Member Custom Field.
- Tasks: Here you can add a task to check the progress on Release Notes, Internal Documentation, and JIRA.
Release Management
Plan your releases and understand if any pre or post-development activities need to be completed.
To set up this board, follow the steps below:
Board Organization
For the Release management board, set the board organization, Grouped by to Release then choose how you want to display releases; in this example, we selected Quarters.
Filters
For a Release management board, set the filters to display Status: Planned and/or In Progress
Columns
Click the Add columns button and select:
-
Releases
-
Tasks
and select the tasks you're tracking or display the status for the features in your task management software of choice.
Post Launch Evaluation
Now that your feature has been released, let's keep a pulse on things and keep the conversation going. Track feedback on your features along with team ceremonies like retros. Take a look at some of the progression of your objectives and how it is progressing based on the release of these features.
To set up this board, follow the steps below:
Board Organization
For the Post Launch Evaluation board, set the board organization, Grouped by to Hierarchy
Filters
For the Post Launch Evaluation board, set the filters to display Status: Done or Released.
If you have multiple products, Filter which product to display in the Hierarchy menu.
Columns
Click the Add columns button, and select:
-
- Objective: Choose the objective you want to evaluate.
- Objective Notes: This is a text field you need to create, click Custom Fields, then Create field > Text
-
Tasks: Here, you can add a task to check the status of the Team Retrospective.
Status board
Understand where each feature is at throughout its lifecycle.
To set up this board, follow the steps in the table:
Board Organization
For the Status board, set the board organization, Grouped by to Status
Filters
For a Status board, set the filters on which product to display if you have multiple products in the Hierarchy
Columns
Click the Add columns button select
Default fields, and toggle on Owner (
)
In #Custom fields; we chose a dropdown field, for Teams.
Top Requests
Focus on the features that are most important to your customers.
To set up this board, follow the steps in the table:
Board Organization
For the Top request's board, set the board organization, Grouped by to Sorted list.
Filters
For the Top request board, set the filters to display Status: New idea.
If you have multiple products, Filter which product to display in the Hierarchy menu.
Columns
Click the Add columns button and select:
) and a custom field, we chose a dropdown field
- Companies
and add specific companies you want to analyze
- Segments
and choose what segment you want to look at
Bug tracker
Track down bugs in your feature list.
To set up this board, follow the steps in the table:
Board Organization
For the Bug tracker board, set the board organization, Grouped by to Hierarchy
Filters
For the Bug tracker board, set the filters to display Tags : Select the tag 🐞 bug
Columns
Click the Add columns button, select
Default fields, and toggle on Owner (
) and a custom field; we chose a dropdown field.
Go-to-market teams
Help go-to-market teams understand which features are gearing up to be launched and what tasks need to be done prior to release.
To set up this board, follow the steps in the table:
Board Organization
For the Go-to-market teams board, set the board organization, Grouped by to Status
Filters
For the Go-to-market teams board, set the filters to display Status: In progress, Done, and Released.
If you have multiple products, Filter which product to display in the Hierarchy menu.
Columns
Click the Add columns button and select:
) and Portals (
-
Tasks
Backlog grooming
Surface features that don't have drivers and/or effort set.
To set up this board, follow the steps in the table:
Board Organization
For the Backlog grooming board, set the board organization, Grouped by to Sorted list
Filters
For the Backlog grooming board, set the filters to display:
-
Team
and select the Teams you want to analyze by.
- Drivers
- Effort
If you have multiple products, Filter which product to display in the Hierarchy menu.
Columns
Click the Add columns button, select
Default fields, and toggle on Owner (
) and Effort (
).
Leadership
Understand how features are scored against your company objectives and segment importance.
To set up this board, follow the steps in the table:
Board Organization
For the Leadership board, set the board organization, Grouped by to Hierarchy
Filters
For the Leadership board, set the filters to display Status: Planned and In progress
If you have multiple products, Filter which product to display in the Hierarchy menu.
Columns
Click the Add columns button and select:
-
- Objectives
and choose the objectives you want to display on the board
- Segments
Engineering
This board helps product teams view what the engineering teams are working on and check on the development progress.
To set up this board, follow the steps in the table:
Board Organization
For the Engineering board, set the board organization, Grouped by to Release, then choose how you want to display releases. In this example, we selected Monthly.
Filters
For the Engineering board, set the filters to display Status: Planned and/or In progress.
Columns
Click the Add columns button, select
Default fields, and toggle on Effort (
), Owner (
), and Dependencies (
). Custom fields: Dev Lead and Designer.
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