Short summary

As a user, I would like to be able to promote ideas from an idea portal to a Release/Project, so that I can better manage my teams' work.

Detailed summary

In our company, we have boards that are both for Products and Projects. For both of these, it seems like it would make sense to be able to promote Ideas to Releases/Projects, as many ideas that come in are not quite small enough to be considered just "Features".

Product example

On our product boards, we treat Features as User Stories: one small part of an overall Release, which is more along the lines of a "feature branch". As an example, imagine an idea coming in for a product management tool asking "I would like a way to submit ideas to the team for implementation and vote on things others have submitted".

Promoting this to a single Feature does not make sense, because this alone would constitute a Release with the following Features:

• Allow users to create a new 'idea portal'

• Create a submission form for the idea portal

• Create an overview page for the idea portal

• Allow users to vote on ideas that they like

The original idea doesn't make sense as a singular Feature, because it's too broad. It could make sense as an Epic, but only if the features within would span multiple Releases -- in this case, they wouldn't, as they're all needed for the initial release. Allowing promotion to a Release solves this gap.

Project example

Project boards have the most clear example: Activities within Projects are not end-user "Features", but are groups of tasks for the project team to complete in order to deliver the Project. Promoting an Idea to an Activity would not make sense, as Ideas wouldn't be for how a project is executed, but for what a project ends up being.

Assume the idea "I would like documentation for how to use the idea portal". This would be a Project, as it is an outcome, not an individual activity. The Project itself would be "Create documentation for the idea portal", with tasks such as:

• Interview product team to get list of features

• Create process maps for idea portal tasks

• Determine where new documentation will live

• Create documentation

• Create announcement communications for new documentation

Again, these are all Activities needed to deliver the Project, not the end result, which is what the Idea represents. Being able to promote the Idea to a Release solves this gap.